Race Equity and Inclusion

As members of the College of Charleston Department of History, we condemn the police violence against Black Americans and the unfair justice system behind it, which we recognize as deeply rooted in our nation’s past. We affirm that Black Lives Matter. We stand in solidarity with those who have raised their voices and taken to the streets in protest.

They have called on us all to live up to the values we claim to uphold.In that spirit, we also acknowledge that as a department we have often fallen short of upholding those values. In particular, we are reckoning with our own shortcomings in terms of striving for more meaningful inclusion of Black and other marginalized voices in our department and in our classes, and in terms of supporting and uplifting our Black colleagues and students.

We commit to developing concrete plans for addressing our shortcomings, beginning with antiracism training for our faculty, and will publicly list our plans on our departmental website. The urgency of the moment calls for nothing less than action, and we pledge to hold ourselves accountable.

1. We commit to requiring antiracist training for all of our faculty
2. We commit to mentoring students of color and encouraging them to apply for departmental scholarships and awards
3. We commit to exploring the possibility of establishing a scholarship to support students from historically disadvantaged groups
4. We commit to updating our course titles and descriptions to highlight spaces in our curriculum that focus on issues of race, racism, and inclusion
5. We commit to a thorough review of our curriculum aimed at ensuring that issues of diversity and inclusion are central to our teaching efforts
6. We commit to including an “inclusion statement” on our course syllabi, stating our commitment to creating an inclusive learning environment
7. We commit to establishing a student advisory board that includes students of color so they can help lead the department on issues of diversity and inclusion
8. We commit to planning events and talks that center on issues of race, racism, and inclusion, including annual programming that supports the campus’s activities related to Black History Month
9. We commit to studying and implementing best practices in hiring to promote building a diverse faculty and staff

Our 4th annual Black History Month Lecture took place on February 29, 2024. It was called, "Black and Indigenous Solidarities & Antagonisms," and was presented by Dr. Alaina Roberts, Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh. Video forthcoming.

The lecture was co-sponsored by the African American Studies Program, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World, the Center for Public Choice and Market Progress, the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, the Department of Political Science, the Office of Institutional Diversity, The department of Religious Studies, and the Women's and Gender Studies Program.

Our 3rd Annual Black History Month Lecture, "Black Women's History as American History and the Everyday Struggles over Liberty and Justice," was presented by Dr. Tamika Nunley, Associate Professor of History at Cornell University, and was held on February 15, 2023.

The lecture was co-sponsored by the African American Studies Program, the Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture, Carolina Lowcountry and Atlantic World, the Center for Public Choice and Market Progress, the Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston, the Department of Political Science, the Office of Institutional Diversity, and the Women's and Gender Studies Program.

"The Bonds of Racial Inequality in Postwar America," featured Dr. Destin Jenkins, Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University, and was held on February 25, 2022.

This lecture was co-sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Development.

Our inaugural Black History Month lecture took place on February 16, 2021. It was called, “Uncontrollable Blackness: African American Men and Criminality in Jim Crow New York,” and featured Dr. Douglas Flowe, Assistant Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis.

This virtual roundtable discussion took place on November 19, 2020. Organized by Dr. Rachel Donaldson and Dr. Elisa J. Jones, the roundtable was designed to meet the needs of local public history practitioners and graduate students interested in diversity, equity, and inclusion as a practice. Bringing together experts in local public history, oral history, archives, museums, and digital history, this conversation addresses the problem of developing antiracist public history digital initiatives and provides a map of best practices for antiracist education and long-term planning in local public history. While the discussion is wide-ranging, the examples are based in Charleston and the Lowcountry region.

Associate Professor Dr. Shannon Eaves planned and facilitated this moderated discussion with Dr. Millicent Brown, whose 1963 court case desegregated Charleston public schools, and Mrs. Caroll Turpin, who was the first black student to integrate Barnwell High School. Together, these women shed light on the urban and rural experience of Jim Crow and the psychological impact of systemic racism.