MAKING FREEDOM DREAMS REALITY: BLACK ACTIVISM, CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, & THE ONGOING STRUGGLE FOR LIBERATION

A Conversation with Dr. Allison Dorsey
Professor Emerita of History
Swarthmore College

TUESDAY, JUNE 20, 2023
12 PM – 1:15 PM
McSHANE CAMPUS CENTER, ROOM 112
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY ROSE HILL CAMPUS

and VIA ZOOM (see link below)

Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day, was first celebrated as a holiday at Fordham in June 2020. Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when the announcement of General Order No. 3 by Union Army General Gordon Granger, proclaimed African Americans’ freedom from slavery in the state of Texas, roughly two months after the official end of the Civil War.

According to our featured guest, historian Dr. Allison Dorsey, the true value of Juneteenth, our newest federal holiday, lies not in the idea of the “celebration” of freedom, but in the way the story of Juneteenth captures the tension between Black freedom dreams and the violent actions by white citizens, bolstered by the state, to deny those dreams. The Juneteenth holiday also offers everyone an opportunity to learn about Black hopes and aspirations – and equally important – Black actions to secure liberty during Reconstruction, and throughout the 160 years since President Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

VIA ZOOM WEBINAR: Click here to join the session

NOTE: you must use your Fordham account to access the ZOOM session

Dr. Allison Dorsey, Ph.D., is Professor Emerita of History at Swarthmore College (PA), whose research and teaching interests include the history of African Americans, the 20th Century civil rights movement, African American Film, and food history. She is the author of numerous publications, including To Build Our Lives Together: Community Formation in Black Atlanta, 1875-1906 (University of Georgia Press, 2007), “The great cry of our people is land! Black Settlement and Community Development on Ossabaw Island, Georgia, 1865-1900,” published in African American Life in the Georgia Lowcountry: The Atlantic World and the Gullah Geechee (University of Georgia Press,2010), and “We’ve Taken Old Gods and Given Them New Names’: The Spirit of Sankofa in Daughters of the Dust,” published in Writing History with Lightening: Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth Century America (Louisiana State University Press, 2019). Dr. Dorsey was also Founding Director of the Swarthmore Summer Scholars Program (S3P) from 2014 to 2017, and has returned to research on black freedmen along the Georgia seacoast.

This event is sponsored by the Office of the CDO, the Office of Human Resources, the Office of Multicultural Affairs (OMA), the Office of the President, and the Office of the Provost