Civil Rights and Protest in America: The Shifting Lens of History
Marcia Chatelain is Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University. The author of South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration, Chatelain is a public voice on the history of African American children, race in America, as well as social movements. She has been quoted in articles in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Washington Post, and has appeared on local television and national outlets including C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNN, BBC-America, and PBS. In 2016, Chatelain was named a “Top Influencer in Higher Education,” by the Chronicle of Higher Education. She is currently the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C.
Overview
In this lecture, Professor Chatelain will present different ways of looking at protests, boycotts, marches, and social change by shifting the lens on civil rights. Through the lessons of the evolution of African American rights from Jim Crow America to today, we will discuss how policies on black housing, policing, and business franchising have led to the unrest we see today. By using a very familiar example (McDonalds), we’ll learn about where we are now and how we got here.