Category / Antiracism

by abritt

Anderson Publishes ‘The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America’

Dr. Carol Anderson has published a new book, The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Examining the establishment of the right to bear arms in relationship to the citizenship rights and human rights of African Americans, Anderson’s work argues that the Second Amendment has consistently kept African Americans “powerless and vulnerable.” Dr. Anderson, who is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department, has spoken about this newest work with multiple media organizations and on a book tour. Find a list of some of the coverage of her newest work below:

by abritt

Suddler Discusses Ronald Greene, Athlete Activism, and Kristen Clarke on ‘Black News Channel’

Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, was recently a featured guest on the Black News Channel. In the interview Suddler discusses the increase of anti-racist and anti-police brutality activism among professional athletes since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a subject that he recently wrote about in-depth for The Washington Post. Suddler also discusses the police killing of Ronald Greene and the appointment of Kristen Clarke as the first Black woman to lead the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division. Suddler is the author of Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York (New York University Press, 2019). Watch the BNC interview here: “Ronald Greene’s death highlights injustice in criminal justice system.”

by abritt

Anderson Quoted in ‘AJC’ on “Jim Crow 2.0”

An article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently quoted Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department. The piece investigates the term “Jim Crow 2.0,” which has recently gained purchase as a description of disenfranchising election laws passed in states throughout the U.S., including Georgia. Anderson offers historical context about the similarities and differences between official anti-Black policies and practices from the turn of the 20th century and today. Read an excerpt below along with the full article: “What does Jim Crow 2.0 mean? A look at the history of segregation laws.”

“The rationale for poll taxes and other voting restrictions in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution — a model for other Southern states, including Georgia — was to restore election integrity, said Carol Anderson, chair of African American studies at Emory University. But Mississippi’s governor admitted the real reason was to eliminate Black people from politics, she said.”

by abritt

Anderson Analyzes Voter Suppression, Past and Present, in the ‘AJC’

Dr. Carol Anderson was quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the parallels between GA’s recently-passed election law and statutes that prevented Black voters from casting ballots in the Jim Crow era. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Her most recent book is One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2018). Read an excerpt from the AJC piece below along with the full article, “Calls of ‘Jim Crow’ spark debate about Georgia election law.”

“The rationale for poll taxes and other voting restrictions in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution — a model for other Southern states, including Georgia — was to restore election integrity, said Carol Anderson, chair of African American studies at Emory University. But Mississippi’s governor admitted the real reason was to eliminate Black people from politics, she said.”

by abritt

Suddler Pens Piece in WaPo: “George Floyd changed the world of athlete activism”

Dr. Carl Suddler, Assistant Professor of History, recently published an article in The Washington Post’s “Made by History” series. The piece examines how athletes have become more outspoken in their criticism of police brutality and, at the same time, more directly involved in supporting social justice and anti-racism. Suddler locates this trend to the previous decade, beginning with the founding of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2012 and reaching a new peak in the last year in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. Suddler also discusses how Black athletes – including Floyd, himself a former college basketball player – navigate the threat and reality of police violence and brutality. Read an excerpt below, along with the full piece: “George Floyd changed the world of athlete activism.”

However, one of Floyd’s most lasting legacies may well be his impact on the sports world. As a former athlete, his life story, which had a special meaning for a generation of athletes, underscored the fine line separating athletic heroes and victims of police violence. His death cemented a new generation of athletes as activists against police violence and professional sports leagues, at minimum, as performative allies. The history of athlete activism reminds us that this movement is one of radical possibility.

by abritt

Crespino Quoted in ‘AJC’ Article on the Future of Stone Mountain

Dr. Joseph Crespino, Jimmy Carter Professor and Department Chair, was recently quoted in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about the fate of Georgia’s Stone Mountain, the three-acre carving that memorializes Jefferson Davis, Stonewall Jackson, and Robert E. Lee. The article discusses recent proposals to provide greater historical context for the memorial, whose construction was motivated by white supremacist ideologies. Read a snippet that quotes Crespino below, along with the full piece: “What ‘telling the truth’ about Stone Mountain might look like.”

“Nostalgia for a white supremacist past,” said Emory University professor Joe Crespino, “was driving the revival of the Klan at the same time it was driving the memorialization efforts of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.”

by abritt

Emory News Center Features Montalvo’s Course, “Slavery and the Archive”

The Emory News Center recently wrote a feature story about Dr. Maria R. Montalvo‘s spring 2021 course, “Slavery and the Archive.” The course involved undergraduates in conducting original archival research on the lives of enslaved people, including in Emory’s extensive collections in African American history in the Woodruff Library and Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives and Rare Book Library. Dr. Erica Bruchko, a 2016 graduate of the History doctoral program and African American Studies and U.S. History Librarian at the Woodruff library, supported the students’ research. Dr. Montalvo is an Assistant Professor and in her second year at Emory. Read a quote from the Emory News Center article below along with the full piece: “History course uncovers ‘archival silences’ of enslaved people.”

“My goal is not to have them all become historians,” Montalvo says. “My goal is to help them understand how to read, learn and question effectively enough to become the best of anything they want to be.”

by abritt

Anderson Draws Parallels to Jim Crow Era in CNN Articles on Voter Suppression

Dr. Carol Anderson was quoted in two recent CNN articles produced as part of a series on voter suppression. The articles examine legislation in multiple states, including Georgia, that observers see as meaningfully restricting voting access and curbing voters’ rights. Anderson explains how this legislation echoes voter suppression tactics from the Jim Crow era.

Dr. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies, Department Chair, and Associated Faculty in the History Department. She is the author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy (Bloomsbury, 2018). Read an excerpt from Anderson’s contribution to the first CNN article below, along with the full versions of each: “Republican state lawmakers look to empower partisan poll watchers, setting off alarms about potential voter intimidation” and “A short history of the long conservative assault on Black voting power.”

“Carol Anderson, an historian and professor of African American Studies at Emory University, said the new proposals build on a history of voter intimidation that long has targeted people of color. ‘What’s built into this is the inequality of the system itself,’ she said. ‘You know that somebody who is Black or Hispanic will not be able to go up into an all-White precinct and start challenging those voters without having a massive law-enforcement response.’ She called the wave of new laws ‘infuriating.’ ‘It’s infuriating because we’ve done this dance before,’ Anderson said. ‘We know what a Jim Crow democracy looks like and the damage it does to the United States of America and to its people.'”

by abritt

Ward Publishes Op-Ed in ‘NY Times’ on GA Voting Law and ‘Jim Crow 2.0’

Dr. Jason Morgan Ward, Professor of History, recently published an opinion piece in The New York Times. The article, “Georgia’s Voter Law Is Called ‘Jim Crow 2.0’ for a Reason,” offers essential historical context for understanding the new voting law that Georgia Republicans passed in the last month. Among the evidence Ward cites is research conducted by History Department senior honors thesis student Hannah Charak. Read an excerpt from the article below along with the full piece here.

“But we may not be as distant in our political moment from theirs as we might think: The long struggle to block access to the ballot has always relied on legal maneuvering and political schemes to achieve what bullets and bombs alone could not.

“What legislators in Georgia and across the country have reminded us is that backlash to expanded voting rights has often arrived by a method that our eras have in common: by laws, like Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, passed by elected politicians.”

by abritt

Suh quoted in ‘AJC’ Article on the History of Asian Immigrants and their Descendants in Georgia

Dr. Chris Suh, Assistant Professor of History, was recently quoted in an article in The Atlanta Journal Constitution. Written in the wake of the March 16 killing of eight people, including six Asian women, in Atlanta, the article examines how Asian immigrants and their descendants have navigated racial divides in Georgia. Suh’s research specializations include the US in the Pacific World, Asian American history, comparative studies in race and ethnicity, and the Progressive Era. His current book project is titled “At the Dawn of the Pacific Era: American Encounters with Asians in the Progressive Era of Empire and Exclusion.” Read an excerpt from the AJC piece citing Suh below along with the full article: “Asians have long, complex history navigating Georgia’s racial divides.”

“Chris Suh, an assistant professor of history at Emory, said the university was one of several southern Methodist schools that recruited elite students from East Asia in the 1880s and 1890s to train as missionaries in the southern conservative tradition.

“‘This is a time when Blacks and Jewish Americans are being persecuted, and you randomly have these Asian elites who are invited to dinner parties with the most influential southerners because they’re Christian, because they’ve conformed to what the white Christians believe is a great way for a non-white person to behave,’ said Suh.“