We the People: The Long Struggle for Democracy

**ONE ticket covers all three course lectures**

Wednesdays, January 8, 15, 22, 2025

5:00 pm Pacific Time

This course will delve into the complex tapestry of social, economic, and political ramifications resulting from pivotal Supreme Court decisions. From the notorious Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld racial segregation, to the transformative Brown v. Board of Education (1954), striking down state-sponsored segregation in public schools, participants will analyze how these decisions reverberated through American society.

Special emphasis will be placed on landmark cases such as Shelby County v. Holder (2013), which dismantled key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, exploring its profound impact on the political landscape, and voting rights. The course concludes with an examination of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), probing the contemporary intersection of race and higher education. Through critical analysis and discussions, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the intricate connections between legal decisions and the social, economic, and political dynamics that have shaped African American constitutional history.

About Dr. Yohuru Williams

Dr. Yohuru Williams is Distinguished University Chair and Professor of History and founding director of the Racial Justice Initiative at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. Dr. Williams received his Ph.D. from Howard University in 1998.

Dr. Williams is the author of Black Politics/White Power: Civil Rights Black Power and Black Panthers in New Haven (Blackwell, 2006), Rethinking the Black Freedom Movement (Routledge, 2015), and Teaching beyond the Textbook: Six Investigative Strategies (Corwin Press, 2008) and the editor of A Constant Struggle: African American History from 1865 to the Present Documents and Essays (Kendall Hunt, 2002). He is the co-editor of The Black Panthers: Portraits of an Unfinished Revolution (Nation Books, 2016), In Search of the Black Panther Party, New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement (Duke, 2006), and Liberated Territory: Toward a Local History of the Black Panther Party (Duke, 2008). He also served as general editor for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History's 2002 and 2003 Black History Month publications, The Color Line Revisited (Tapestry Press, 2002) and The Souls of Black Folks: Centennial Reflections (Africa World Press, 2003). Dr. Williams served as an advisor on the popular civil rights reader Putting the Movement Back into Civil Rights Teaching.

Dr. Williams has appeared on a variety of local and national radio and television programs most notably ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Aljazeera America, BET, CSPAN, Fox Business News, Huff Post Live, and NPR and was featured in the Ken Burns PBS Documentary Jackie Robinson (2016), the Stanley Nelson PBS Documentary, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015), and the Judd Ehrlich film The Price of Freedom (2021). He was also one of the hosts of the History Channel’s Web Series, Sound Smart and was a featured commentator on History’s popular series, “The Titans that Built America” (2021) and “The Food That Built America” (2019).

Dr. Williams's scholarly articles have appeared in the American Bar Association’s Insights on Law and Society, The Organization of American Historians Magazine of History, The Black Scholar, The Journal of Black Studies, Pennsylvania History, Delaware History, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights and the Black History Bulletin. Dr. Williams is also presently finishing a new book entitled In the Shadow of the Whipping Post: Lynching, Capital Punishment, and Jim Crow Justice in Delaware 1865-1965 under contract with Cambridge University Press.

Host or Publisher Common Power