UA Race, Slavery and Civil Rights Task Force to Host Series of Teach-Ins

The Half Has Not Been Told: The Study of Race, Slavery and Civil Rights is a series of teach-ins sponsored by the Faculty Task Force on Creating a Commission on Race, Slavery and Civil Rights at The University of Alabama.

Slavery

The History of Slavery at UA

View the video of the event.

The next event will highlight aspects of the history of enslavement on The University of Alabama’s campus, as well as its ties within and throughout the Tuscaloosa community. Speakers will highlight topics including the lives and history of enslaved people on campus, early Christian organization among enslaved and formerly enslaved people in Tuscaloosa, and the ties between campus slavery and that of the wider city of Tuscaloosa.

The virtual event will be Wednesday, March 31, at 6 p.m. on Zoom. 

Panelists for the evening:

• Dr. Jenny Shaw, associate professor, UA Department of History

Shaw published her first book, “Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference” with the University of Georgia Press in 2013. She will share information from her undergraduate research seminar titled “Slavery at UA” taught during the Fall 2020 semester.

• Rev. Dr. Thaddeus Steele, pastor of Hunter Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, Tuscaloosa’s oldest Black congregation.

A native of Tuscaloosa County, Steele holds an MBA and MDiv, as well as a PhD in organizational behavior and communication from Howard University. He is an instructor of business administration at Stillman College and a board member of the Tuscaloosa Civil Rights History and Reconciliation Foundation.

• Dr. Joshua Rothman, professor and chair, UA Department of History

Rothman is the author of three books on the history of American slavery, including “The Ledger and the Chain: How Domestic Slave Traders Shaped America,” which will be published this April by Basic Books.

The conversation will be moderated by Dr. G. Christine Taylor, vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at The University of Alabama.

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Civil Rights

Focus on Civil Rights

The first event was held Wednesday, Feb. 17, via Zoom. View the video of the event.

As part of a series of teach-ins on the study of slavery and its legacies at The University of Alabama, this Focus on Civil Rights examines how racism and white supremacy have defined systemic inequalities in education.

“These legacies have longstanding consequences that shape our world today, which means students and educators alike need to understand these inequities to rethink the kinds of institutions we want to build,” said Dr. Ellen Griffith Spears, task force member who coordinated the event and an associate professor in New College and the UA Department of American Studies.

Panelists, who shared their research and experiences, were:

• Dr. Natalie Adams, professor, New College and the College of Education

Adams is the former director of UA’s New College and served as the assistant dean of UA’s Graduate School from 2007-2013. She coordinates the Levitetz Leadership Program at UA. Adams is the co-author of four books, including “Just Trying to Have School: The Struggle for Desegregation in Mississippi” and “Cheerleader! An American Icon.” She was a third-grade student in Winnsboro, Louisiana, when her school was desegregated as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in Alexander v. Holmes (1969). NPR’s Story Corps featured Adams and her classmate, Dr. Eli Brown, in a story about desegregation on the 50^th anniversary of the Alexander ruling.

• 

  Dr. Vincent Willis, assistant professor, New College and the UA Department of Gender and Race Studies

Willis centers his work on the historical ideas and actions of Black youth to achieve educational equality. He investigates the consequences of educational policies—federal and local—of operating over-resourced white schools and grossly underfund Black schools, in opposition to the demands of Black students. Willis’s book, “Audacious Agitation: Black Youth and the Uncompromising Commitment to Equal Education” (forthcoming from University of Georgia Press), illustrates how Black youth applied their experiences as public-school students to make public education more democratic.

• Dr. Charles Ray Nash, vice chancellor emeritus for Academic Affairs for The University of Alabama System

As a senior academic officer in The University of Alabama System since 1992, Nash was the chief liaison to academic, institutional research and planning officials at UA, UAB and UAH, advising the chancellor on academic policy, providing primary leadership in program planning, development and review, and representing the System in matters of diversity, inclusion and equity. Nash began his career teaching middle school science and was a school principal in McComb, Mississippi. He was dean of the School of Education at Armstrong Atlantic State University (Georgia) and held leadership posts at the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia.

For more information, contact the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at diversity@ua.edu.