Category / Public Scholarship

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.“

by abritt

Anderson Quoted in ‘TIME’ Article on GA Voting Law

Dr. Carol Anderson was recently quoted in the TIME article “Georgia Has Enacted Sweeping Changes to Its Voting Law. Here’s Why Voting Rights Advocates Are Worried.” The article outlines reactions to recent legislation that places new requirements and restrictions on voting in the state of Georgia. The Republican supporters of the law describe it as preventing electoral fraud, while critics see the legislation as aiming to suppress and disenfranchise voters, especially Black and Brown voters. Read an excerpt quoting Anderson below along with the full piece.

“Carol Anderson, chair of African American Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, describes the attempt by Georgia’s legislature as well as others around the country as similar to the Mississippi plan of 1890, which employed measures such as poll taxes and literacy tests to add barriers to the polls that especially affected Black Americans.

“’It didn’t say, ‘Okay, we’re just going to have the poll tax, and that ought to stop black people from voting.’ What it did was it had an array of policies that were designed and that worked together. If the poll tax didn’t get you, the literacy test would. If the literacy test didn’t get you, then the good character clause would,’ Anderson says. ‘It’s a web. You’re dodging and you’re hopping, but lord, don’t hit one of those things.’”

by abritt

Anderson Analyzes Senate Bill 202 for WABE’s ‘A Closer Look’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently a guest on the WABE radio show A Closer Look. Anderson analyzed Senate Bill 202, legislation that Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed into law that will place new requirements and restrictions on voting in the state of Georgia. Anderson places this legislation into historical context, drawing parallels between these new restrictions and voter suppression tactics from generations prior. Read an excerpt below along with the full piece: “Emory Professor Discusses Voter Suppression, Senate Bill 202, Power Of Black Vote.”

“During the virtual interview, Anderson told show host Rose Scott that she believes Senate Bill 202 is based on false premises. ‘If it passes, I expect immediate legal challenges,’ said Anderson. ‘It is really clear that this bill is based on the [big lie] — the big lie that led to the Capitol insurrection, the big lie about the stealing of the vote, the big lie about massive voter fraud.’ Anderson also said lawmakers have historically tried to shut down Black voting power — citing several examples, including literacy tests, poll taxes and the Mississippi Plan.“

by abritt

Anderson Comments on GA Senate and House Voting Legislation

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article in Atlanta Magazine. The piece focuses on the dozen bills currently alive in the Georgia state House and Senate that are focused on voting issues. Opponents critique this legislation as Republican efforts to curb voting rights in the wake of Democratic victories in the 2020 presidential election and for the state’s two senate seats in early 2021. Read an excerpt from the piece quoting Dr. Anderson below along with the full article: “Here’s what’s going on with voting legislation in Georgia and why opponents say it’s clear ‘voter suppression.'”

“But Emory University professor Carol Anderson, author of One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy, says Republican lawmakers are going on a “bonanza” to deter alleged voter identity theft, despite no proof of voter fraud in recent elections. “They are targeting American citizens and denying them their right to vote,” she says. Anderson, an expert on the country’s history of voter suppression, says that the nature of the bills wasn’t surprising, but it was the sheer volume of bills introduced in Georgia during the current session that has garnered widespread attention, even as other states propose similar legislation.“

by abritt

Slave Voyages Launches Consortium

Slave Voyages, a preeminent resource for the study of slavery and a digital memorial, recently launched a cooperative consortium with six other institutions to ensure its sustainability. The consortium includes Emory, the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture at William & Mary, Rice University, and three campuses at the University of California that will assume a joint membership: UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine and UC Berkeley. Slave Voyages contains the records of tens of thousands of trans-Atlantic and inter-American slaving voyages, and users can submit new records as they are encountered.

The database grew out of the archival research of Dr. David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus in the Emory History Department. Dr. Allen E. Tullos, Professor of History and Director of the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship, has worked on an extensive update and expansion of the project since 2018. He serves on the project’s steering committee, along with Emory History Department graduate alumni Dr. Alex Borucki (University of California, Irvine) and Dr. Daniel B. Domingues da Silva (Rice University). Read more about launch of the consortium through a quote from Eltis below along with articles in the Atlanta Journal Constitution and from the Emory News Center.

“‘The launch of the SlaveVoyages.org consortium is an innovation not just for scholars of slavery, but for all soft money digital humanities projects,’ says David Eltis, Robert W. Woodruff Professor Emeritus of History and co-director of the SlaveVoyages project. ‘At long last, this consortium opens up a route to sustainability.‘

by abritt

Klibanoff and Students Offer Behind the Podcast Look at ‘Buried Truths’

Hank Klibanoff recently gave a behind the scenes look at the podcast he hosts, “Buried Truths.” The episode includes comments from Emory students, who participate in the research that goes into “Buried Truths.” Emory students are also key researchers for The Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, which Klibanoff directs. Klibanoff is James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department. Listen to the episode here: “Behind the Podcast.”

by abritt

Anderson Honors Life and Legacy of Amelia Boynton in ‘The Guardian’

Dr. Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Associated Faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in an article honoring the life and legacy of Amelia Boynton. Published in The Guardian, the piece provides an overview of the work of the influential Selma-based civil rights activist, who was instrumental in the grassroots organizing that led to Voting Rights Act of 1965. Read an excerpt from the article quoting Anderson below along with the full piece: “Fight to vote: the woman who was key in ‘getting us the Voting Rights Act.‘”

“‘She got us the Voting Rights Act,’ said Carol Anderson, a historian at Emory University.

“‘It’s one of the ‘failings,’ and I’ll put that in quotes, of the writings of the civil rights movement, is that women who are key in organizing are written out,’ she added. ‘The grassroots work of Mrs Boynton just didn’t get the kind of respect and honor that it deserved.'”

by abritt

Lipstadt Offers Tribute to George Shultz for Work Supporting Emigration of Soviet Jews

Dr. Deborah E. Lipstadt, Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish History and Holocaust Studies and associated faculty in the History Department, was recently quoted in a Jewish Telegraphic Agency article. The piece, “In extraordinary tribute, George Shultz hailed by Jewish leaders for helping free Soviet Jews,” praises the efforts of former U.S. secretary of state George Shultz (1982-89) to enable emigration of Soviet Jews from the USSR. Shultz died earlier this month at the age of 100. Read an excerpt quoting Lipstadt below, along with the full article.

“Deborah Lipstadt, professor of Holocaust studies at Atlanta’s Emory University, recalled an interview that Shultz gave the Los Angeles Times shortly after his term as secretary of state had ended. Asked to name the most memorable moment of his time in office, he said it was when he received a phone call from refusenik Ida Nudel announcing she was finally ‘home in Israel.‘

“That he told the press this was the highlight of his tenure gives you not only a measure of the man, but also a measure of how important this issue was for him,’ Lipstadt said. ‘We are privileged to have been touched by him.‘”

by abritt

Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project Partners with National Center for Civil and Human Rights to Produce Exhibit about the Victims of 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre

Emory’s Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project will partner with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to produce an exhibit about the more than two dozen Black Atlanta residents murdered in what has become known as the Atlanta Race Massacre of 1906. The exhibit will make up part of a three-story expansion to the National Center for Civil and Human Rights funded by a $17 million grant by the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. Hank Klibanoff, James M. Cox Jr. Professor of Journalism and Associated Faculty in the History Department, is the director of the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project. The Blank Family Foundation grant will support the continuation of research by Klibanoff, along with undergraduates in his course the Cold Cases Project, into the Black lives lost to the massacre. Read an excerpt from the Emory News Center feature of the project below along with the full article: “Grant to help Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project uncover Atlanta’s racial history.”

“Who were these people? What did they do, how did they live, how did they die? We know enough from our preliminary research to see the victims were people living on the right side of the law, but they became political pawns, expendable because of their race,” says Klibanoff, a professor of practice in Emory’s Creative Writing program.

“We’ll be seeking to animate their lives to give them the historical justice that was denied them by law enforcement and the judicial system in 1906,” he adds.