Legacies links for March 6, 2023: A Weekly Roundup

As always, we encourage you to share this post. A link does not imply agreement or endorsement by the Council of Independent Colleges.

An advertisement for an electric-gasoline hybrid car invented by Black inventor Granville Woods (1916).
Prolific inventor Granville T. Woods (1856–1910) was sometimes called the “Black Thomas Edison.” A company he founded was selling hybrid (gasoline-electric) cars in 1916 — almost a century before the Prius. image source: Wikimedia Commons

Some general links:

  • Christopher Cicchiello, “How to respond to ‘All lives matter’ and more: An ex-neo-Nazi offers advice,” Today (March 5, 2021): LINK. Some raw (and potentially triggering) insights into the racist mindset.
  • Julian Zelizer, “Uncovering the forgotten history of slavery in the North,” CNN (March 2, 2023): LINK. A new project aims to recover the identities of more than 700 enslaved Black and Native American people at the South Fork of Long Island, New York, piecing together the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade in the North.
  • David Brancaccio and Erika Soderstrom, “The consequences of underestimating the racial wealth gap,” Marketplace (March 2, 2023): LINK. “[Many Americans] underestimate the severity of racial economic inequality in this country — by a lot.”
  • Manann Donoghoe and Andre M. Perry, “The case for climate reparations in the United States,” Brookings Institution (March 2023): LINK. “Because the impacts of climate change are accelerating,” say the authors, “what’s needed is not just a wealth transfer to redress legacies of injustice, but a shift toward a more equitable and antiracist climate change policy.”
  • Michael E. Ruane, “A casket holder, an airship and a list of pioneering Black inventors,” The Washington Post (February 27, 2023): LINK. Celebrating innovation through a list of Black inventors compiled by patent examiner and civil rights activist Henry E. Baker at the end of the nineteenth century.
  • Jack Molmud, “What we can learn from the life and legacy of Prince McLellan, an enslaved Mainer,” News Center Maine (February 21, 2023): LINK. McLellan “escaped enslavement [in Maine] to fight in the Revolutionary War.” Now, a descendant of the family that enslaved him is working with the Atlantic Black Box Project to recover his history.

News about CIC member institutions:

  • Liam Knox, “A law school’s ‘denaming’ evokes donor family’s ire,” Inside Higher Education (March 1, 2023): LINK. In another theater of the culture wars, when CIC member University of Richmond voted to remove a slaveholding donor’s name from its law school, his descendants (and others) launched a legal and digital campaign against the institution.
  • “St. Olaf offers trip that traces the history of the civil rights movement,” St. Olaf College (February 28, 2023): LINK. Even alumni programs can be opportunities to teach about the legacies of slavery: Prof. David Booth leads alumni from CIC member St. Olaf College on study tours through the landscape of the Civil Rights Movement.
  • “Center for Anti-Slavery Studies Collection gifted to Weinberg Memorial Library,”University of Scranton (February 23, 2023): LINK. The University of Scranton, a CIC member, has received a gift of teaching and research materials from the community-based Center for Anti-Slavery Studies. The collection includes materials related to Black Pennsylvanians, the Underground Railroad, the abolition movement, and the Civil Rights Movement.