THURSDAY, February 4th, 2021 AT 7 PM – 8:30 PM
This FREE event will be hosted on Zoom. Register Here!
On January 6, an insurrectionist mob attacked the United States Capitol. Carried on the long tide of America’s violent racist history, they carried the flag of the Confederacy, and some even prepared for a public lynching. Even with the lessons of Charlottesville still fresh, some still sought to turn away from the spectacle and find comfort in a fog of forgetfulness by saying “this is not who we are.”
As the distinguished historian Dr. Carol Anderson has argued, however, American history since the Civil War has been driven both by the dream of freedom and by the engine of white rage. Every step forward—from the 14th Amendment through the Civil Rights Movement to Tulsa’s own prosperous Black Wall Street—has been greeted by racist reactionaries.
We are seeing this moment play out once again and invite you to join the Oklahoma Center for the Humanities for a virtual discussion about the history of white rage in America, with a particular focus on the intersection of 1921 and 2021. This conversation will focus on Professor Anderson’s book, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and will feature two prominent scholars: Julian Hayter from The University of Richmond and Robert Jackson from the University of Tulsa.
This event is free and open to everyone, though you will need to register in advance. We urge you to join us for this urgent conversation about the long history of American racism and how the past illuminates our effort to secure a more just and equitable society.
About the Speakers:
Dr. Julian Hayter is a historian whose research focuses on modern U.S. history, American political development, African-American history, and the American civil rights movement. More specifically, his writing and research draws attention to mid-20th-century voting rights in Richmond, Va., and in the border South; the implementation of the Voting Rights Act; and the unintended consequences of African-American political empowerment and governance post-1965. He is the author of The Dream is Lost: Voting Rights and the Politics of Race in Richmond, Virginia. His work has been published in the Journal of Policy History and Richmond Journal of Law and Public Interest. He also contributes to national and local media outlets.
Dr. Robert Jackson is the James G. Watson Professor of English at the University of Tulsa. He explores the interdisciplinary connections among literature, film and media, and social history in the modern and contemporary United States. His most recent book, Fade In, Crossroads: A History of the Southern Cinema, considers the varied relations between black and white southerners and the motion picture medium from the silent era to midcentury. Current projects include a study of James Baldwin’s circle of political and cultural allies in the early 1960s, and a study of William Faulkner as a theorist of race and media emerging from the Jim Crow South.
Thanks to a generous grant from the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, we will be distributing a limited number of free copies of Carol Anderson’s White Rage to the local community. Copies can be picked up at Fulton Street Books in the heart of the historic Greenwood District. Address: 210 W Latimer St, Tulsa, OK 74106. Phone: (918) 932-8646.
Check out the event on Facebook.