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SOLD OUT! At Issue: The Erasure of Black History Featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning Historian Marcia Chatelain and New York Times White House Correspondent Erica L. Green
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Hill Center launched its new public affairs discussion series, At Issue in April. The series examines the many critical issues we are faced with today.
Since taking office, President Trump has tried to reframe the country’s past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history or at times denying that it happened. As historian Marcia Chatelain notes, “When you erase history, you make people more vulnerable to abuses of power.”
Erica L. Greem has reported on concerns surrounding President Trump’s executive orders and their potential impact on Black history education and recognition. Specifically, Green has described how the orders have raised concerns about the possible re-framing of American history and culture, which some fear could lead to the minimizing, ignoring, or even erasure of aspects of Black experiences and contributions to the nation’s past. In a June 20th New York Times analysis, Green writes, “The president’s decision to snub Juneteenth — a day that has been cherished by generations of Black Americans before it was named a federal holiday in 2021 — is part of a pattern of words and actions by Mr. Trump that minimize, ignore or even erase some of the experiences and history of Black people in the United States. Since taking office in January, he has tried to reframe the country’s past involving racism and discrimination by de-emphasizing that history or at times denying that it happened. Government websites have been scrubbed of hundreds of words, including “injustice” and “oppression.” Federal agencies eliminated or obscured the contributions of Black heroes, from the Tuskegee Airmen who fought in the military, to Harriet Tubman, who guided enslaved people along the Underground Railroad. School libraries were purged of writings by pre-eminent Black authors like Maya Angelou. Mr. Trump has assailed the Smithsonian Institution for what he characterized as “divisive, race-centered ideology” in its exhibits on race. He ordered the renaming of monuments to honor Confederate soldiers who fought to preserve slavery. Taken together, Mr. Trump’s actions are part of a larger cultural and political battle, in which diversity has become an all-purpose target for society’s ills.” “Trump’s behavior around Juneteenth isn’t isolated at all — it speaks to how he views our community, and everyone who doesn’t look like him or isn’t as wealthy as he is,” notes Derrick Johnson, the president of the N.A.A.C.P. “It’s why he’s stripping away our rights, erasing our history and silencing our voices.”
Marcia Chatelain is the Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Chatelain has received awards and honors from the Ford Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States. During her twelve years at at Georgetown University, Chatelain won several awards for her teaching and university service, including the 2022 Georgetown Black Alumni Council Distinguished Leader Award, the 2021 Georgetown Alumni James S. Ruby Faculty Appreciation Award, and in 2018, a Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professorship, among others. In 2016, The Chronicle of Higher Education named her a Top Influencer in academia in recognition of her social media campaign #FergusonSyllabus, which implored educators to facilitate discussions about the crisis in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. She has held an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellowship at New America, a National Endowment for the Humanities Faculty Fellowship, and an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. The author of South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration, she teaches about women’s and girls’ history, the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, as well as black capitalism. Her latest book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America examines the intricate relationship among African American politicians, civil rights organizations, communities, and the fast-food industry. Chatelain has received numerous awards for Franchise, including the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in History, the Hagley Prize in Business History, the Organization of American Historians Lawrence W. Levine Award, the Hurston Wright Legacy Award, the Hooks Institute National Book Award, the Alfred and Fay Chandler Book Award and the James Beard Foundation Award for Writing.
Erica L. Green is a White House correspondent for The New York Times, covering the daily decisions comings and goings and newsworthy events involving the president, the vice president and other members of his cabinet. Green is particularly interested in social policy and civil rights, but covers a range of topics spanning domestic and foreign policy. She is drawn to stories that illustrate how the decisions made on Pennsylvania Avenue impact the American people, and shape the dynamics of American society. Green joined the White House beat in the summer of 2023, and covered the last year-and-a-half of the Biden administration, as well as the 2024 presidential campaign. Prior to that she covered education.
Presented in conjunction with ASALH (Association for the Study of African American Life and History, founded in 1915 by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, and Hill Center’s Benjamin Drummond Emancipation Day Celebration, a series that honors America’s first liberated enslaved people with scholarly and celebratory programs that bring together a diverse group of prominent experts, artists, and public figures throughout the year to explore the Civil War and its aftermath from the African American perspective. The series is named in honor of the Old Naval Hospital’s first patient, a young African American seaman.
