As part of its 'Global Faces of the Yale Library' season of events, the Yale University Library is offering the following lecture in recognition of African American History month. The talk is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception in the Library's Memorabilia Room.

“We Return…We Return: Memory and Citizenship Claims in the Long Civil Rights Era” Jonathan Holloway, Master of Calhoun College and Professor of African American Studies, History & American Studies

Friday February 23rd at 12 Noon in Sterling Memorial Library Lecture Hall

“We Return…We Return” is an evocation of W.E.B. Du Bois’s famous call to arms to black America in 1919 when African American soldiers returned home, expecting to enjoy their full civil rights as American citizens. When the truth of their reception was revealed, black soldiers were lynched, even in uniform, for such transgressions as refusing to sit in the “colored section” of buses. Du Bois warned America: “We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.” Du Bois’s admonition serves as a touchstone for Holloway’s talk. He examines the call to remember suggested in Du Bois’s refrain and extends that call into what needs to be understood as the long civil rights era and its dependence upon the interactions between memory and citizenship claims. Professor Holloway will read from the introduction of his work in progress, Jim Crow Wisdom: Memory, Identity and Politics in Black America, 1941-2000.

All are welcome.

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