Learn About "Race and Memory at Our Public Universities"

Public universities have struggled with discussing the history of race relations on their campuses. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) Professor William Sturkey wants to ensure that these histories at public institutions across the country are remembered accurately and in ways that reflect the experiences and perspectives of all of these institutions’ community members.

Sturkey, pictured at right, will lecture on “Race and Memory at Our Public Universities” on Wednesday, March 11 in Norlin Library. A historian of Modern America who specializes in the history of race in the American South, Sturkey is particularly interested in the histories of working-class minorities. 

Recently, Sturkey has been deeply involved in controversies over Confederate memory on UNC-Chapel Hill’s campus regarding the removal and relocation of the “Silent Sam” monument and statue. 

Sturkey’s upcoming lecture at the University of Colorado Boulder will draw on these experiences and on larger conversations about how race is publicly memorialized on university campuses.

“University campuses across the nation have been grappling with their historical involvement in various forms of racial oppression and with how those histories have—and have not—been memorialized,” Paul Sutter, chair of the Department of History said. “William Sturkey’s talk will be a timely one, particularly as CU Boulder embarks on its own reckoning with its past through the CU Boulder History Project.” 

“The goal of the lecture is to spark a dialogue about how the nation’s public universities have and have not addressed diverse histories memorialized in their public spaces,” Megan Friedel, head of archives said. “We hope this also initiates conversations about how CU Boulder is addressing these issues.” 

The Libraries’ Special Collections, Archives, and Preservation department has partnered with the Department of History and the Center for Humanities & the Arts to bring Sturkey to campus. 

Join us to learn how public universities are addressing the way race is memorialized on campuses around the country in the British and Irish Studies (CBIS) Room [Norlin Library, 5th floor] on Wednesday, March 11, 5 p.m.–6:30 p.m.