Professor and writer Jelani Cobb unspooled lessons from the past to put the “troubling” present into perspective as the Harris School of Public Policy continued its celebration of Black History Month.
Cobb, a New Yorker columnist and the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University, darted across America’s racial landscape for “Speaking the Truth, Understanding Our History.” His February 9 remarks at this second in a series of Harris Black History Month events were followed by discussion with moderator Alaina Beverly. The assistant vice president for urban affairs at the UChicago Office of Civic Engagement, Beverly also led a question-and-answer session between Cobb and the virtual audience.
Each Harris Black History Month event, all of which explore the power of social movements, “seeks to facilitate meaningful conversations about the Black experience in the United States and around the globe,” said Michelle Hoereth, assistant dean for diversity and inclusion, as she introduced Cobb.
“Tonight's conversation,” she added, “will be a bit of a history lesson and an effort to provide greater context for understanding not only where we are at this moment in time, but how we got here and, more importantly, how do we move forward?”
To provide that context, Cobb talked about “what history says and how it enlightens us about the current circumstances.”
Those circumstances are troubling, he said. “We should be very clear about that.”
“Just this week,” Cobb said, “we have seen the Supreme Court allow Alabama laws … that disadvantage Black voters to remain intact. We have re-embarked on a McCarthyite era of book banning. We have seen a reflexive and limbic attack upon a false doctrine of critical race theory, or something being referred to as critical race theory, that has impacted the ways in which history can be taught.”
“So tonight,” he said, “I want to talk a little bit about the ways in which these dynamics and these developments echo previous moments and what they have to teach us.”
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This story was first published by The University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy.
