The White Republic and Black Memory

The never-ending racial tensions in American society reflect distortions of their history that go back to the founding of the Republic in 1789, when slavery became the backbone of American political economy. The concept of slavery was not mentioned in the Constitution until the institution itself becomes abolished with the 13th Amendment in 1865. Four million enslaved were released into freedom without financial and other support. The leaders of the rebellious Confederacy were not charged with the crime of treason, and white supremacists in the South began to blockade all political changes and introduced an economic system that has been called “slavery by another name”. This history of oppression forms the background of American racism because it is not included in the narrative of the America that is exclusively white. The Black counter-narrative that intellectuals, preachers, and artists have been contributing to has not yet penetrated the mythical white American narrative.

Lecturer: Prof. Dr. Manfred Henningsen
Lecture in English

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