The call for a modern-day civil rights movement. We talk to two scholars of history about the need for change and healing.
June 09, 2020
By Hilary McQuilkin and Meghna Chakrabarti
Guests:
David Blight, professor of history, African American studies and American studies and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance and Abolition at Yale University. Author of "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom," which won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in History. (@davidwblight)
Lucas Johnson, executive director of civil conversations and social healing for the On Being Project. Community organizer, writer and a minister in the American Baptist Churches. (@onbeing)
From The Reading List:
The Atlantic: "One Week to Save Democracy" — "In America’s house divided, racism—its structures and its individual acts—is tearing us apart in what feel like irreparable ways. On top of that, more than 106,000 Americans are dead from a virus that’s still raging, nearly 40 million others are unemployed, and hundreds of businesses as well as police buildings and vehicles are burning in American cities."
On Being: "Living the Questions: When no question seems big enough" — "'An anguish that is not even enough for a question — the inadequacy of everything that’s been done, and all of my best motivations and desires.' Krista talks through the question of what questions we should be asking right now with her wise colleague and beloved friend Rev. Lucas Johnson."
Listen to the NPR On Point podcast: https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2020/06/09/america-modern-day-civil-rights-movement