Understanding Critical Race Theory: What It Is and What It Isn't - In person

Program Type:

Author & Literary Events, Book Clubs, History & Genealogy, Race, Equity & Inclusion

Age Group:

Adults
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Event Details

 

This past year, everyone has begun talking about Critical Race Theory, a set of premises developed by legal scholars decades ago to interpret America’s institutions in the context of race and civil rights.

In recent months, legislators in many states have rushed to pass laws to ban the teaching of CRT from K-12 classroom across the country. Yet what exactly is CRT? It can be hard to know. There’s no manifesto or mission statement. That’s made Critical Race Theory a bit of a moving target. 

This talk has three quite different goals. The first objective is to locate the origins of CRT, establish its core premises, describe the recent controversy, and interrogate the stakes of it all. The second objective is to show CRT in action—to narrate the histories of voting rights and of crime and punishment in the United States through the lens of Critical Race Theory. The third is to introduce participants to a list of practices that CRT scholars believe all of us can adopt to mitigate the worst legacies of slavery in our current world.

 

About the presenter:

Richard Bell is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. 

He is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2021-2023) and has held research fellowships at more than two dozen libraries and institutes including residencies at the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Abolition, and Resistance at Yale University and the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. His work has also been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Bell serves as a fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a trustee of the Maryland Center for History and Culture, an elected member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and as a board member of the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System Foundation.

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