On Nov. 18, Prairie View A&M University President Ruth Simmons, who will speak on “Civil Society’s Debt to Higher Education.”
Join Emmanuel Akyeampong, faculty director of the Harvard University Center for African Studies and professor of History and of African and African American studies at Harvard, on Dec. 1 for “African and African American Relations, c. 1960 to Recent Times: Transformations in Global Blackness.”
Join the discussion at the link below! You will need to use your UO email address to sign up!
What's CODE SWITCH? It's the fearless conversations about race that you've been waiting for! Hosted by journalists of color, our podcast tackles the subject of race head-on. We explore how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and everything in between. This podcast makes ALL OF US part of the conversation — because we're all part of the story.
"Oregon Black Pioneers debuted a new programming initiative last week with the first episode of “The Register”, a radio show co-produced by KMUN Coast Community Radio. The 5-minute weekly broadcast features a biography of a different figure from Oregon’s African American history. Zachary Stocks, OBP’s Executive Director, is the show host." Read the 9/22/20 press release about this new show from the Oregon Black Pioneers historical society site.
Uncivil brings you stories that were left out of the official history of the Civil War, ransacks America's past, and takes on the history you grew up with. We bring you untold stories about resistance, covert operations, corruption, mutiny, counterfeiting, antebellum drones, and so much more. And we connect these forgotten struggles to the political battlefield we’re living on right now. The story of the Civil War — the story of slavery, confederate monuments, racism — is the story of America.
"In Season 4, John Biewen and Chenjerai Kumanyika explore democracy in America—past and present—in twelve biweekly episodes. The series retells the story of the country, or pivotal parts of that history, while exploring critical questions like, How democratic was the U.S. ever meant to be? American democracy is clearly in crisis today, but, when was it not? The series will almost certainly complicate, and may upend, our listeners’ understanding of American history.
The Season 4 title, The Land That Never Has Been Yet, is borrowed from the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again.” “O, let America be America again— / The land that never has been yet— / And yet must be. . . .”
Season 2, the Peabody-nominated Seeing White, is also worth checking out. In it, "Biewen and collaborator Chenjerai Kumanyika explored the history and meaning of whiteness."
Objects hold history. They're evocative of stories stamped in time. As part of The Washington Post's coverage of the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture, people submitted dozens of objects that make up their own lived experiences of black history, creating a "people's museum" of personal objects, family photos and more. The Historically Black podcast brings those objects and their stories to life through interviews, archival sound and music. The Washington Post and APM Reports are proud to collaborate in presenting these rich personal histories, along with hosts Keegan-Michael Key, Roxane Gay, Issa Rae and Another Round hosts Heben Nigatu and Tracy Clayton.
On Pod Save the People, DeRay Mckesson explores news, culture, social justice, and politics with Sam Sinyangwe, Kaya Henderson and De’Ara Balenger. They offer a unique take on the news, with a special focus on overlooked stories and topics that often impact people of color.
"Oral histories and interviews with African Americans who endured the hardships of slavery. These recordings document the first-person accounts of several individuals whose life experiences spanned the period during and after slavery. The podcasts are drawn from several collections in the American Folklife Center Archives, one of the preeminent audio-visual repositories of national and international folklife, history and cultural expressions. A production of the American Folklife Center."
Still Processing is hosted by two Black, queer culture writers from The New York Times, Jenna Wortham and Wesley Morris, who make sense of the internet, trends, social issues and pop culture at large.
"From the makers of Making Obama, WBEZ Chicago presents Making Beyoncé, a new three-part bio-podcast series that explores Beyoncé Knowles' rise from local talent shows to global musical icon."
How did race become such a flash point in modern society, and why does it remain contentious in our genomic age? In this first-of-its-kind trans-disciplinary podcast, biological anthropologist Jim Bindon joins with cultural anthropologist Lesley Jo Weaver and historian of science Erik L. Peterson to explore our species' centuries long debates over how to define biological and behavioral difference, and why it continues to matter today.
One host, Jo Weaver is an assistant professor of International Studies at the University of Oregon.
Stories from Across the Black Diaspora.
Listen to Episode 14: The birth of Solomon about infant and maternal mortality: "He was the perfect little brown baby, and his name was Solomon. Thick curly hair, chubby legs and eyes closed with dark black lashes. Solomon's story is one that affects thousands of families whose babies are twice as likely to die before reaching the age of 1, and Black mothers are up to 4 times more likely to die from pregnancy related causes. This story is personal as we go deep into the story behind the statistic.Two sisters remember a child lost, and discover the answer to a lingering question."
"The View from Somewhere: A Podcast About Journalism With A Purpose features stories of marginalized and oppressed people who have shaped journalism in the U.S. The podcast focuses on the troubled history of “objectivity” and how it has been used to gatekeep and exclude people of color, queer and trans people, and people organizing for their labor rights and communities. It is created and hosted by Lewis Raven Wallace, and produced by Ramona Martinez, with editorial support from Carla Murphy, Phyllis Fletcher, and Hideo Higashibaba, music by Dogbotic, and art by Billy Dee."
According to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Oral History is a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving, and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events.
Image: Copyright © 2003-2020 StoryCorps, Inc. Used under Fair Use for Educational Purposes Only.
Explore the stories from iconic elders of African Americana and others who have shaped the culture in significant ways:
"This is a 50 slide timeline and audio commentary created by Walidah Imarisha for a program called 'Why Aren't There More Black People in Oregon?: A Hidden History,' which looks at the history of race, identity and power in Oregon and the larger nation. Oregon has a history not only of Black exclusion and discrimination, but also of a vibrant Black culture that helped sustain many communities throughout the state—a history that is not taught in schools. Oregon as a state was explicitly founded on the idea of creating a white nationalist utopia, and in that way is a useful case study to see the mentality that nationally shaped the institutions that govern our lives."
In this MTV Decoded episode from 2016, Francesca Ramsey examines 5 myths about slavery in the US that are just that, myths.
From the first group of enslaved Africans brought to Virginia in 1619, the US was founded on violence and theft against Black people. This history creates and undergirds the racism and White colonial supremacy culture that structures the everyday lives of everyone in the US today. This history is upsetting. It’s upsetting for those of us who have benefitted from it — everyone who has written this guide — and for those who have suffered from it. Stolen labor made stolen land more valuable, and the demand for land among White slaveholders accelerated the drive to force Indigenous peoples in North America off their land. We hope these resources inspire readers toward actions for Black liberation and social change.
If you find yourself struggling with emotions that come up as you engage with this history, we encourage you connect with resources and people that can support you, like the UO Counseling Center and Diversity and Inclusion Student Support from the DEI Division of Student Life. For those in the UO community who are survivors of racial violence, of gendered violence, or whose ancestors have been, this history can intersect with those more personal and communal experiences in ways that are particularly challenging. Please explore this project in ways that center your well-being as well.
Incidents of bias or harassment on campus can be reported to the Office of Investigations and Civil Rights Compliance or Bias Education and Response Team.
Seven University of Oregon librarians came together to select physical and digital textual, audio, and visual resources supplemental materials for the 2020-2021 Common Reading for the podcast, “1619”. These materials come from scholarly authoritative institutional sources from academic journals, academic books, popular reading, museums, and libraries. They were found using UO Libraries library catalog, subscription database, through the Internet, and from conversations with Black experts and colleagues. Additional UO librarians contributed to the pages for the novel, This is My America.
The content on this guide exists here to support supplementary resources to the 1619 podcast. The potentially harmful content on it is here to help those learning through the UO Common Reading to aid in understanding, analyzing, and reflecting on how slavery has shaped Americans’ everyday lives through politics, society, cultural, and economics. By facing this historical context and truth, the resources on this guide deepen our understanding of the experiences of enslaved Black people and how that history benefits some and disadvantages others to this day.
The resources available on this reading guide were selected based on:
The librarians involved in the creation of this “1619” research guide are working to help users understand the podcast and this content by:
We capitalized the terms Black and Indigenous in this guide where the terms refer to groups that share racial or ethnic identities. We also chose to capitalize the term White, except where it appears in a quotation, to reflect a growing understanding of White as a racial identity that shapes the world. That said, there is considerable debate on whether to capitalize the term White. We have chosen to follow the recommendation of the National Association of Black Journalists as well as the scholarly opinion of Historian Nell Irvin Painter.
Where we have identified potentially offensive or profane language, we have endeavored to include a content warning.
The Librarians who worked on this guide are listed below. We would like to also thank Kelly Reynolds, Reference Law Librarian, for her assistance with some legal information. We would like to express gratitude to Rachel K Mallinga for her advice and guidance about food sovereignty and local Black farming organizations. Thanks also to Professor Michael Hames-García for his work around criminal justice reform and for sharing syllabuses and reading material recommendations with us.
We'd also like to acknowledge the Libraries' Diversity Committee, the Common Reading Program, and other stakeholder units and departments on campus who reviewed this guide's content.
Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019 by
A chorus of extraordinary voices comes together to tell one of history's great epics: the four-hundred-year journey of African Americans from 1619 to the present--edited by Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to Be an Antiracist, and Keisha N. Blain, author of Set the World on Fire. The story begins in 1619--a year before the Mayflower--when the White Lion disgorges "some 20-and-odd Negroes" onto the shores of Virginia, inaugurating the African presence in what would become the United States. It takes us to the present, when African Americans, descendants of those on the White Lion and a thousand other routes to this country, continue a journey defined by inhuman oppression, visionary struggles, stunning achievements, and millions of ordinary lives passing through extraordinary history. Four Hundred Souls is a unique one-volume "community" history of African Americans. The editors, Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain, have assembled ninety brilliant writers, each of whom takes on a five-year period of that four-hundred-year span. The writers explore their periods through a variety of techniques: historical essays, short stories, personal vignettes, and fiery polemics. They approach history from various perspectives: through the eyes of towering historical icons or the untold stories of ordinary people; through places, laws, and objects. While themes of resistance and struggle, of hope and reinvention, course through the book, this collection of diverse pieces from ninety different minds, reflecting ninety different perspectives, fundamentally deconstructs the idea that Africans in America are a monolith--instead it unlocks the startling range of experiences and ideas that have always existed within the community of Blackness. This is a history that illuminates our past and gives us new ways of thinking about our future, written by the most vital and essential voices of our present.
Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination by
This exciting history of renegade intellectuals and artists of the African diaspora throughout the twentieth century begins with the premise that the catalyst for political engagement has rarely been misery, poverty, or oppression. People are drawn to social movement because of hope: their dreams of a new world radically different from the one they inherited. Our imagination may be the most revolutionary tool available to us, and yet we have failed to understand its political importance and recognize it as a powerful social force. From Paul Robeson to Aime Cesaire to Jayne Cortez, Kelley unearths freedom dreams in African and Third World liberation movements, in the hope that Communism offered, in the imaginative mindscapes of Surrealism, in the transformative potential of radical feminism, and in the four-hundred-year-old dream of reparations for slavery and Jim Crow.
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by
The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Some Americans insist that we're living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America -- it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever. And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis. As Kendi shows, racist ideas did not arise from ignorance or hatred. They were created to justify and rationalize deeply entrenched discriminatory policies and the nation's racial inequities. In shedding light on this history, Stamped from the Beginning offers us the tools we need to expose racist thinking. In the process, he gives us reason to hope.
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by
As the United States celebrates the nation's "triumph over race" with the election of Barack Obama, the majority of young black men in major American cities are locked behind bars or have been labeled felons for life. Although Jim Crow laws have been wiped off the books, an astounding percentage of the African American community remains trapped in a subordinate status, much like their grandparents before them, who lived under an explicit system of control.--Book jacket.
Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation by
The study of USA's on-going failure to achieve true racial integration, Bind Us Apart shows how, from the Revolution through to the Civil War, white American anti-slavery reformers failed to forge a colour-blind society.
Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man's Land, 1619-2000 by
In a devastating narrative that spans more than three centuries, from colonial times to the present day, Alienable Rights reveals how whites have excluded blacks from virtually every area of American life, denying them full citizenship and equality. Brought to America early in the seventeenth century, the first slaves were treated in much the same way as indentured white servants who had come from England. After only a few years, however, whites ostracized blacks, who were viewed as an inferior race, and passed laws making their enslavement permanent, denying even free blacks the most basic rights enjoyed by whites. Though many slaves fought honorably in the Revolutionary War, earning their freedom, the Constitution (1787) sanctioned slavery, making it -- in the words of one of the signers -- the document's "most prominent feature." Three years later, Congress passed the nation's first naturalization act, limiting citizenship to "free white persons" only. Throughout the country, a popular colonization movement developed, attracting whites who hoped to make the United States a purely white nation by transporting all blacks to Africa or the Caribbean. Though the Civil War ended slavery, the subsequent congressional attempt to remake southern society during Reconstruction failed because whites in both the North and the South were unwilling to accept blacks as equals, with the same rights to vote, to attend school, and to move freely throughout American society. Instead, the Supreme Court approved the subterfuge of "separate but equal," which allowed state governments to maintain racial segregation by providing blacks with inferior institutions of their own. The "Jim Crow" system was overturned by the civil rights movement that followed World War II, but much of the progress of the 1960s and 1970s was blunted by an angry backlash in the 1980s. The authors contend that the drive for African American equality has never had the support of the majority of white Americans. Racial progress has come in brief historical bursts when a committed militant minority -- abolitionists, radical Republicans, civil rights activists -- stirred the nation to action, pressuring it to change; but, invariably, advances have been followed by concerted efforts to restore white privilege.
How Race Survived U.S. History: From Settlement and Slavery to the Obama Phenomenon by
Explores how the idea of race was created and recreated in American history. This book examines how race intersected all that was dynamic and progressive in US history, from democracy and economic development to migration and globalization.
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