Race, Democracy and the Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights
2015
This year, [2015] the nation has witnessed and commemorated a series of Civil Rights Anniversaries. The fiftieth anniversaries of “Bloody Sunday” and the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 have encouraged the public to celebrate the courage and resolve of both the sung and unsung figures of the Civil Rights Movement. However, the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the Watts Uprising in Los Angeles, in the context of the recent uprisings in Ferguson, Baltimore and New York, is a sobering reminder that the resolve and courage of the Civil Rights figures is desperately and urgently necessary today. For as Martha Ragland, former president of the Tennessee Council of Human Relations, declared, “We need quickly and massively to attend to the unfinished business of democracy.”
Recognizing the “unfinished” project of democracy, the members of this panel will address race, democracy and ongoing struggles for civil rights in academia, communities and the nation at large. The presentations range from meditations on the emotional and psychological effects of freedom fighting on Civil Rights figures to discussions of the continuous neglect of Black, female activists in the historical accounts of the Civil Rights to inquiries into the present status of democracy in a society riddled with police brutality and state violence. The “Unfinished Business: Race, Democracy and the Ongoing Struggle for Civil Rights” panel seeks to bring all of these issues to the forefront to highlight the vital need for nuanced, collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches to both the past and present racial struggles.
Justin Dunnavant is a doctoral student studying archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida.
Randi Gill-Sadler is a doctoral candidate in the English Department and joined SPOHP in Fall 2014 as a graduate coordinator.
Justin Hosbey is a doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Florida.
Darrell White is the Director of the Natchez African American History and Culture
Dr. Paul Ortiz is a history professor at the University of Florida