About the Symposium

Legacies of Slavery: Past, Present & Future

Presented by the Council of Independent Colleges
in collaboration with the
Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition
at the MacMillan Center at Yale University

April 5–7, 2022

Panelists

Edward L. Ayers
University of Richmond
Edward L. Ayers
University of Richmond
Professor of History and President Emeritus
Edward L. Ayers is a historian of the South and the Civil War era. He is the author of many award-winning books, including The Promise of the New South and The Thin Light of Freedom: The Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America, and directed the innovative digital history project, “The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War.” Ayers is professor of history and president emeritus of the University of Richmond. He previously served as dean of arts and sciences at the University of Virginia.
Sessions:
David W. Blight
Yale University
David W. Blight
Yale University
Sterling Professor of History
David W. Blight is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on the Civil War and its legacy. His books include Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (winner of the Pulitzer prize and many other awards) and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory. He is Sterling Professor of History at Yale University, where he also directs the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at the MacMillan Center. Blight is the director of CIC’s Legacies of American Slavery initiative.
Sessions:
Lonnie G. Bunch III
Smithsonian Institution
Lonnie G. Bunch III
Smithsonian Institution
Secretary
Lonnie G. Bunch III, is a pioneer in the public historical representation of the Black experience. He has spent many years shaping the public history of American and African American history in various museums and as a public voice and representative of this story, culminating in his role as founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC. He currently serves as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. Bunch is the author of many works, including A Fool’s Errand: Creating the National African American Museum of History and Culture in the Age of Bush, Obama, and Trump.
Sessions:
Kevin Gannon
Grand View University
Kevin Gannon
Grand View University
Professor of History
Kevin Gannon is a professor of history at Grand View University in Des Moines, Iowa, where he also directs the Center for Excellence in Teaching in Learning. His research interests include race and racisms, critical and inclusive pedagogy, and 19-century American history. He is the author of Radical Hope: A Teaching Manifesto and a forthcoming textbook on the Civil War and Reconstruction. His work as a public historian includes an appearance in Ava DuVernay’s award-winning documentary 13th. He tweets as @TheTattooedProf.
Sessions:
Elizabeth Hinton
Yale University
Elizabeth Hinton
Yale University
Associate Professor
Elizabeth Hinton is Associate Professor in the Department of History and the Department of African American Studies at Yale, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Law at the Law School. Hinton’s research focuses on the persistence of poverty, racial inequality, and urban violence in the 20th century United States. She is considered one of the nation’s leading experts on criminalization and policing, and her publications include From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America. Hinton’s articles and op-eds can be found in the pages of the Journal of American History, the Journal of Urban History, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Boston Review, The Nation, and Time. She also coedited The New Black History: Revisiting the Second Reconstruction.
Sessions:
Sonya Douglass Horsford
Teachers College, Columbia University
Sonya Douglass Horsford
Teachers College, Columbia University
Professor of Educational Leadership and Co-Director, Urban Education Leaders Program
Sonya Douglass Horsford is professor of educational leadership and co-director of the Urban Education Leaders Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research explores the problem of racial inequality in K–12 schools and how race is conceptualized and understood by leaders for equity and social justice in the United States. Her publications include Learning in a Burning House: Educational Inequality, Ideology, and (Dis)integration and many articles. She is the founding director of the Black Education Research Collective and leads a major initiative to develop an interdisciplinary Black studies curriculum for the New York City school system.
Sessions:

Schedule

KEYNOTE PANEL

Legacies of Slavery: Past, Present & Future

Tuesday, April 5, 2022, 7:00–8:30 p.m. EDT

Welcome

Marjorie Hass, President, Council of Independent Colleges.

Moderator

David Blight, Sterling Professor of History and Director, Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University

Panelists

Edward L. Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities and President Emeritus, University of Richmond; Founding Chair of the Board, American Civil War Museum
Lonnie G. Bunch III, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution; Founding Director, National Museum of African American History and Culture*
Elizabeth Hinton, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, Yale University

These panelists are among the most important thinkers over the past several decades on the problems of slavery and race in the public culture of the United States. They will address the successes and challenges of grappling with these histories in museums, on the memorial landscape, in legal policy, in popular media, and on university and college campuses.

*Secretary Bunch was unable to participate due to travel delays.

“RECKONING” SESSIONS

Wednesday, April 6, 2022, 2:30–3:45 p.m. EDT
Wednesday, April 6, 2022, 4:00–5:15 p.m. EDT
Thursday, April 7, 2022, 2:30–3:45 p.m. EDT

What are independent colleges and universities doing to reckon with the legacies of slavery? These sessions will showcase the efforts of seven Regional Collaboration Partners—CIC member institutions that serve as organizing hubs for the national Legacies of American Slavery network. Each institution is leading exciting projects in the areas of research, teaching and learning, and public engagement, while focusing on a specific legacy of slavery. (Learn more about the legacy themes.) These sessions will introduce participants to current and future projects, including opportunities for other colleges and community-based organizations to collaborate.

SESSION I: Places and Memories

Dillard University (New Orleans, LA) and Sewanee: The University of the South (Sewanee, TN)

The Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation at the University of the South will demonstrate a new online database, Locating Slavery's Legacies. The database contains information about Civil War-related memorials on American college and university campuses. It relies on collaboration to build a common resource, yielding insights into the history of the Lost Cause at individual institutions while also enabling comparative analysis of how Confederate memorialization has influenced teaching and learning since emancipation. Dillard University's Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture will highlight an online film and lecture series devoted to The Legacies of American Slavery: Food, Music & Tourism. The series focuses on cultural creativity and expression in these areas—foodways, music, and tourism, especially in New Orleans—as powerful ways to understand and cope with slavery and its aftermath. The film and lecture series combines research, insight, and critical analysis of the past, present, and future and features renowned scholars with expertise in their subject matter.

SESSION II: Reckoning in Classrooms and Communities

Austin College (Sherman, TX), Centenary College of Louisiana (Shreveport, LA), and Huston-Tillotson University (Austin, TX)

Austin College, Huston-Tillotson University, and Centenary College of Louisiana are focusing on issues of teaching and learning about the legacies of slavery. Building intra- and inter-institutional collaborations, as well as dynamic community engagement with public school systems, the three institutions will share their experiences and offer insights into this process at the class, curricular, institutional, and interdisciplinary levels within the contested landscape of race and education today. Representatives from Austin College will consider the intersection between private colleges and public education in the context of their pedagogical workshops on histories of racial violence and resistance; from Huston-Tillotson University will discuss the development of an environmental justice curriculum and its ties to community; and from Centenary College will examine issues of race and place-based learning in the context of teaching bioethics.

SESSION III: Voices of Change and Community

Lewis University (Romeoville, IL) and Meredith College (Raleigh, NC)

This session will highlight projects at Lewis University and Meredith College designed to document the narratives of politically engaged people of color to help propel change that brings a more equitable future. Working with local community partners, students and faculty members from Lewis University are collecting the oral histories of activists as one step towards combating environmental justice concerns in Fairmont, Illinois. Meredith College is partnering with faculty members and students at other CIC member colleges to interview politically engaged women of color who have held office or have challenged contested citizenship through protest and other types of activism. Meredith College has also worked with state political organizations to develop a Political Institute designed to prepare women of color to seek out elected and appointed political office in North Carolina. These can be models for projects in other states and communities.

CLOSING SESSION

Teaching the Legacies of Slavery in the Face of Resistance

Thursday, April 7, 2022, 4:00–5:15 p.m. EDT

Moderator

David Blight

Panelists

Kevin Gannon, Professor of History, Grand View University
Sonya Douglass Horsford, Professor of Education Leadership and Founding Director, Black Education Research Collective, Teachers College, Columbia University

Educators face increasing resistance to frank discussions about race, racism, and the other legacies of American slavery—in school board meetings, state legislatures, social media, news outlets, and elsewhere. How should they respond? Join David Blight in conversation with an expert college teacher, public historian, and faculty trainer (Gannon) and a scholar of educational inequality who is now leading the development of an antiracist curriculum for the New York City schools (Horsford).

Next Steps for the CIC Legacies Project

Philip M. Katz, Director of Projects, CIC

Concluding Remarks

David Blight

Funders

The Legacies of American Slavery: Reckoning with the Past initiative is supported by a generous grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation with additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this symposium do not necessarily represent those of the NEH, the Mellon Foundation, CIC, or Yale University.