The University of Alabama at Birmingham will host an open forum, “Sharing Difficult Histories” to examine the redefining and reshaping of the history of the United States’ difficult past. The conversation is part of the UAB Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s Critical Conversations Series.
The forum, “Critical Conversations: Sharing Difficult Histories,” will take place on Wednesday, Mar. 27 at 6:00 p.m. in Heritage Hall, Room 102. The event is free and open to the public. All are welcome.
The panel conversation will focus on the many U.S. histories, such as slavery, Westward expansion, the Civil War and Jim Crow, that remain difficult to address and the stark reminders from current events of the consequences of leaving those histories under-examined. A panel of experts will join together to examine what makes difficult history hard to discuss and how to teach and share difficult histories without reinforcing ethnic, religious and cultural divisions or undermining social cohesion.
The panel includes Bridgette Kennedy, Ph.D., assistant professor and director of the Online Undergraduate Program in the UAB Department of Psychology; Pamela Sterne King, director of the UAB Undergraduate Program in the Department of History; Michael Fitts, assistant dean for User Access and Diversity of UAB Libraries; Rev. Jennifer Sanders, pastor of Beloved Community Church and Barry McNealy, Education Program Consultant at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.
Critical Conversations is a campus-wide civic forum series that provides a platform for civil discourse. The goal is to foster a diverse, equitable and inclusive community by using education and civil discourse as tools to encourage and empower UAB and its surrounding communities to engage, collaborate and create solutions to social issues affecting our communities.