College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Event Description:

Examining histories of race and racism in higher education has become a necessary act on many college campuses. But after twenty years of these studies, have they transformed the work of our universities? With a deeper understanding of our past, what should be our goals for the future of higher education?

Join us on February 17 at 6 pm in the Pugh Hall Ocora for this vital lecture presented by Leslie M. Harris, professor of history and African American studies at Northwestern University. A specialist in Pre-Civil War African American history, she has authored or co-edited five books, including In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City (2003) and most recently Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (2019, with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy).

Parking is available for this in-person event in the Murphree Parking Lot off University Avenue between Buckman Drive and Fletcher Drive.

This is the first in a two-part series presented by the Dr. Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Sankofa Initiative for confronting slavery and its legacies at the University of Florida.

Speaker Bio:

Leslie M. Harris is Professor of History and African American Studies at Northwestern University. A specialist in Pre-Civil War African American history, she has authored or co-edited five books, including In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City (2003) and most recently Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (2019, with James T. Campbell and Alfred L. Brophy). Harris has also participated in a number of public history projects, including the award-winning Slavery in New York exhibition (2005-2007) at the New-York Historical Society, and the accompanying book (with Ira Berlin); the re-interpretation of the urban slave quarters at Telfair Museum’s Owens-Thomas House in Savannah, Georgia, which included the edited volume Slavery and Freedom in Savannah (2013, with Daina Ramey Berry); and the interactive website “People Not Property” with Historic Hudson Valley (New York, 2019). She is currently working on Leaving New Orleans: A Personal Urban History, which uses memoir and family, urban and environmental histories to explore the multiple meanings of New Orleans in the nation, from its founding through its uncertain future amid climate change.

Harris received her undergraduate degree at Columbia and her doctoral degree at Stanford. Before moving to Northwestern, she taught for 21 years at Emory University. Her work has been supported by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute, the Mellon and Ford Foundations, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas, and the University of Maryland.

UF Series Funders and Co-Sponsors:

The Dr. Patricia Hilliard-Nunn Sankofa Initiative; Bob Graham Center for Public Service; Samuel Proctor Oral History Program; History Department; African American Studies Program; Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere (Rothman Endowment); Political Science Department.