Dr. Carol Anderson was recently a guest on CBS News, where she discussed the state of American democracy. Anderson offers historical context about both the distant and recent roots to undemocratic practices in the U.S. Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department. Watch the full interview here: “Concerns raised about the future of democracy in America.”
Category / Public Humanities
U.S. Senate Confirms Lipstadt to Antisemitism Post
The United States Senate has confirmed Emory historian Deborah E. Lipstadt to serve as a special envoy to monitor and combat antisemitism across the globe. Although Republicans in the Senate delayed Lipstadt’s confirmation for months, she received unanimous approval in the vote on March 30. Lipstadt is Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Read more about the envoy position and recent confirmation here: “Historian Deborah Lipstadt confirmed as envoy to combat antisemitism after push from Jewish groups.”
Klibanoff Comments on Hate Crimes Convictions in Arbery Case for WABE
Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently a guest on WABE’s Closer Look with Rose Scott. Klibanoff discussed the recent convictions – on all counts – of the three men who killed Ahmaud Arbery in a federal hate crimes trial. Klibanoff hosts the “Buried Truths” podcast and serves as the director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory. He was also recently confirmed to the Federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board. Listen to the interview here: “Jury Finds Ahmaud Arbery Killers Guilty On All Counts.”
U.S. Senate Confirms Klibanoff and Dudley to Federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board
The U.S. senate has confirmed James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism Hank Klibanoff and Rose library instructional archivist Gabrielle M. Dudley to the federal Civil Rights Cold Case Review Board. Established in 2019 and convened in 2022, the panel has received authorization through 2027 to investigate unsolved cases from the Civil Rights era. Klibanoff is director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory and host of the award-winning podcast Buried Truths. Read more about the federal cold cases panel and Atlantans’ significant roles within it: “Civil rights cold case board to have unique Atlanta flavor.”
SlaveVoyages Featured, Eltis Quoted in ‘NYT’ Article
The digital memorial and database project SlaveVoyages, spearheaded by Emeritus Professor David Eltis and maintained by numerous Emory faculty and alumni, was recently featured in an article in The New York Times. The piece, “We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was,” provides an overview of the trans-Atlantic trade in enslaved Africans as well as the history of SlaveVoyages itself. Originating in the 1960s, the database was recently expanded with a new section titled “Oceans of Kinfolk” that includes information on trafficking within North America in the first half of the nineteenth century. The New York Times columnist, Jamelle Bouie, situates this expansion in the context of a broader reflection about how data on slave trafficking can provide access to or, alternatively, obscure the lived experiences of the enslaved. The Steering Committee of SlaveVoyages includes the following Emory History faculty and alumni: Allen E. Tullos (Professor, Emory History Department), Alex Borucki (PhD 11, Associate Professor, UC-Irvine), and Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (PhD 11, Associate Professor, Rice University). Read Bouie’s article here: “We Still Can’t See American Slavery for What It Was.”
Anderson Describes “Jim Crow 2.0” on ‘Democracy Now’
Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African-American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was a guest on Democracy Now on the one-year anniversary of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Anderson critiques Republican efforts to limit voting access, especially for Black voters, by promoting baseless claims about voter fraud. Watch Anderson discuss “Jim Crow 2.0” with host Amy Goodman here: “‘White Rage’ Author Carol Anderson: GOP Attack on ‘Election Fraud’ Really an Attack on Black Voters.”
Anderson and Klibanoff Discuss Arbery Case on ‘Closer Look’
Two associated faculty in the History Department – Dr. Carol Anderson (African American Studies) and Hank Klibanoff (Creative Writing) – were recently interviewed on Closer Look with Rose Scott, a program produced by Atlanta’s NPR affiliate WABE. Anderson and Klibanoff discussed the recent convictions and sentencing of the three men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery. Anderson is the author, most recently, of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America (Bloomsbury, 2021). Klibanoff is the host of the WABE podcast Buried Truths, which dedicated its third season to the Arbery’s life and murder. Listen to the full Closer Look interview here.
‘TIME’ Features Research Conducted by Klibanoff and Students for ‘Buried Truths’ Podcast
TIME recently featured historical research conducted by the Emory team behind the “Buried Truths” podcast. Season three of the podcast, which is led by James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism Hank Klibanoff and comprised of Emory undergraduate students, focused on the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The researchers identified various direct descendants of Arbery, including an enslaved local leader in agriculture and environmental engineering, Bilali Mohammed, through census research. Read an excerpt from the TIME piece below along with the full article: “What Ahmaud Arbery’s Death Has Meant for the Place Where He Lived.”
“In the 1700s, some of Watts and Arbery’s shared ancestors arrived in the region in a group of enslaved families brought to Sapelo Island to cultivate rice, cotton and indigo to enrich their white slaveholders. On his father’s side, Arbery was also the direct descendant of Bilali Mohammed, an enslaved man originally from West Africa brought to the island after first being enslaved in the Caribbean, according to the team of students behind Atlanta Public Radio’s Buried Truths podcast. The students, lead by Hank Klibanoff, director and co-teacher of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project at Emory University, were able to confirm that lineage by hunting through Census and other records after a detailed tip shared by Barger, something of a local-history buff. Mohammed—whose slaveholder represented Georgia in the U.S. Congress—was an important source of African agricultural and engineering techniques befitting a climate where rice will grow; that knowledge was key to making Brunswick a prosperous center of economic and cultural activity. Mohammed left behind a 13-page Arabic-language manuscript that is today in the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript collection at the University of Georgia.“
Scully Quoted in ABC’s Digital Essay on Sara Baartman
Dr. Pamela Scully, Vice Provost of Undergraduate Affairs, Professor in WGSS and African Studies, and Affiliated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a digital essay published by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The piece, “The fight for Sarah Baartman,” discusses the life, death, and legacy of Sara Baartman. Scully and Dr. Clifton Crais, Professor of History, co-authored a biography of Baartman in 2009, titled Sara Baartman and the Hottentot Venus: A Ghost Story and a Biography (Princeton UP). Read the essay here: “The fight for Sarah Baartman.”
Lipstadt Serves as Expert Witness in Civil Trial Against Organizers of Charlottesville Rally
Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, is serving as an expert witness in a civil lawsuit against the organizers of the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Counterprotesters charge that the rally organizers promoted violence against them based on racial and religious hatred. That violence led to the death of one counterprotester, Heather Heyer, who was killed when white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. In her expert testimony (published here), Lipstadt concludes that “the ideology, symbols, and rhetoric that were on display at the Unite the Right rally fit comfortably within a long tradition of antisemitism and share in the tradition that led to the violent murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust.” Read more about the case in The New York Times article: “For Holocaust Scholar, Another Confrontation With Neo-Nazi Hate.”