From Confederate Monuments to Black Lives Matter: Rethinking Race and History
In the Winter 2021 semester George Klein and Dana Foster considered the fate of Confederate memorials throughout the southern United States. What began as a look at recent controversies over monuments to the Confederacy has since become a significant turning point in our understanding of race and American history. A primary catalyst has been the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the deaths of George Floyd and Brionna Taylor by police action, and the realization that these were only the latest in a long series of similar incidents. Reactions nationwide have been broad and deep, questioning the meaning of monuments and names on buildings, as well as assumptions about race going back to the slavery period, and the contradiction of our revered founding fathers as slave holders. In this class George and Dana continue their close observations of our cultural self-examination. Participants in this class might also wish to attend the April 29 Elderwise virtual tour of Unsettling Histories: Legacies of Slavery and Colonialism, a University of Michigan Museum of Art exhibit. (Please see TO55 under TOURS.)