Instructor: Bob Rackmales
- Zoom and Online Class
- 6 Sessions, Thursdays from 3pm – 5pm, Sept. 24, Oct 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
- Registration for the Zoom portion of class open until September 16
- Class full, Zoom registration closed
- How to participate without Zoom registration
- $20
From the 1940s until today some of our most eminent historians have made significant contributions to public understanding of an issue which is once again at the center of national attention—social and political conflict based on race. Since understanding requires that we consider the meaning of events that happened many generations ago, historians’ views should continue to play a key role as we debate these questions.
This course will consist of six classes, each focused on a single historian. Required reading and video links are listed below each class:
Class 1: The Irony of Southern History. C. Vann Woodward
- The Irony of Southern History (University of Virginia)
- C Van Woodward (Perspectives On History)
- Erasing History or Making History? Race, Racism, and the American Memorial Landscape
Class 2: Race and the Meaning of America. John Hope Franklin
- Remembering John Hope Franklin (Perspectives on History)
- Opening Keynote from John Hope Franklin Symposium 2015
Class 3: A Questionnaire on Monuments. Eric Foner
- A Questionnaire on Monuments (Eric Foner)
- Eric Foner (Bio)
- Historian Eric Foner: Broken promises of Reconstruction relevant to today’s racial justice movement
Class 4: Race and History in Virginia. Drew Gilpin Faust
Class 5: Frederick Douglass’s Vision For America. David Blight
Class 6: America’s Enduring Caste System. Isabel Wilkerson
The required readings for each class, consisting of a brief biography of each historian and the article whose title is listed above, are available as links below. In addition, suggestions for further reading and links to relevant videos are provided below.
Members may take part in the course by registering for six discussions via Zoom (see details above) or by sending their questions/comments to the instructor at rrackmales@gmail.com.
6 Sessions, Thursdays from 3pm – 5pm, Sept. 24, Oct 1, 8, 15, 22, 29
Book and Video Recommendations
General
- Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, NY, 1952
- Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past, Philadelphia, 2001
Drew Gilpin Faust
- This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, NY, 2008
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t3p1QItIhk
John Hope Franklin
- John Hope Franklin, Mirror to America, NY, 2005
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE6KkOanaaw
C, Vann Woodward
- C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, NY, Third ed. NY, 1974
- John Herbert Roper, C. Vann Woodward: Southerner, Athens GA, 1987
Eric Foner
- Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, NY 2010
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj5MeRM4fG8
David Blight
- David W. Blight, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era, Cambridge MA, 2011
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh1_lZDqoMU
Isabel Wilkerson
- Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, 2011
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxpouTYfJKY
Bob Rackmales has degrees in history from Johns Hopkins (where C. Vann Woodward was one of his professors) and Indiana Universities. He was also fortunate to meet John Hope Franklin through a mutual friend. During his 32 year Foreign Service career he assessed the causes and consequences of ethnic conflict in such diverse places as Nigeria, Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, and as Director of the Office of Human Rights at the State Department.