A little over a year ago, I started thinking about the connections between the Holocaust and Jim Crow. I did this, partly, because I planned to do a study travel trip to Poland where students and I would explore these connections, notably meeting and working with Polish students who were studying Southern literature. However, that trip did not materialize, due to a myriad of factors. I … Read More Education and Confronting the Past
Growing up in the evangelical church, and continuing to attend during adulthood, I’ve noticed that the sermons from the pulpit typically, but not always, revolve around a handful of themes: service, spiritual gifts, tithing, relationships, evangelicalism, and a few more. Along with this carousel of themes, various comments continues to arise again and again. For me, the one that pops up all of the … Read More The Dangers of Preaching the Persecution of Christians in the United States
During my “Jim Crow and the Holocaust” class, I am continually coming across new texts to add to an ever expanding bibliography or work that looks at the intersections between Jim Crow in the United States and the Holocaust in Europe. Recently, I read James Baldwin’s “Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because They’re Anti-White,” which appeared in The New York Times on April 9, 1967, two-months … Read More James Baldwin, Jim Crow, and the Holocaust
On June 26, 1945, the United States, along with other nations, signed the Charter of the United Nations which mandates that its members work towards the maintaining of international peace, upholding international law, and working to secure and maintain equality and equity by “promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.” Three … Read More The Genocide Convention and “We Charge Genocide”
Whenever I go to the Lillian E. Smith Center, I take time to look around, and inevitably, I always find something new that I’ve somehow missed in my previous trips. Usually, I scan the numerous books that Smith has in her library, her bedroom, and elsewhere. During a recent trip, I picked up Bucklin Moon’s Primer for White Folks (1945), a book I’d picked … Read More We Must Not Remain Silent: Lillian Smith’s “Address to White Liberals”
Interminable Rambling 