This fall Emory University will host a symposium titled, “In the Wake of Slavery and Dispossession: Emory, Racism and the Journey Toward Restorative Justice.” Dr. Walter C. Rucker, Professor of African American Studies and History, Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Associated Faculty in History, and History doctoral student Camille Goldmon have served on the symposium’s steering committee. The Emory News Center recently published a feature story on the Sept. 21-Oct. 1 event, which will be free to the public. Read an excerpt from their story quoting Dr. Rucker below along with the full article: “Fall symposium connects activism to Emory’s history of slavery and land dispossession.”

“‘The past is a part of our living present,’ says Walter Rucker, an African American studies and history professor and steering committee member. ‘Slavery, dispossession and Jim Crow created a continuum for the racial logics we live with today. To talk about slavery and how it devalued Black lives helps us address why a police officer could kneel on a man’s neck for nine minutes. The same, or similar, logics that spawned racism energize patriarchy, homophobia and transphobia as well. Every person has a role in chipping away at these constructs in order to create a more just future.'”