This week’s installment of the Thursday Nights at the Museum will dive in to the country’s complicated history surrounding race.
The virtual event, “Activists & Allies: On Slavery, Race & Social Justice,” will feature university professors Alphonse Keasley Jr. and Peter H. Wood as they "compare notes on their journeys of activism, helping others make sense of the long history of slavery and segregation in the U.S."
Keasley, who recently retired as associate vice chancellor in the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, came to the University of Colorado Boulder in 1975, beginning what he calls his life as a “university citizen.” He started his academic career path as a graduate student at Phillips University in Enid, Oklahoma, where he studied audiology. It was there he met his mentor, Pete Pederson, who connected him with Oklahoma State University, where he was hired as one of 10 Black faculty members out of nearly 1,000 at the university.
Keasley came to CU Boulder in 1975 as a faculty member in the Speech, Language and Hearing Science Department. In 1986, he began working as a part-time instructor in the University Learning Center (now called the Student Academic Success Center). The role at the ULC “was so pivotal for my development in this work around diversity and inclusion," he said.
During his time at CU, Keasley said he has been part of a campus community that is trying to become more diverse and more inclusive, but not without challenges.
Wood is an adjunct professor of history at CU Boulder and emeritus professor of history at Duke University, where he taught for 35 years. He holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University, bachelor’s degrees from Harvard and Oxford University and was a Rhodes Scholar. His research interests span early American history and the interactions of diverse cultures, race relations, American painting and the history of documentary film.
He is the author of “Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion,” which has been described as one of the most influential books on the history of the American South of the past 50 years.
Wood also is the author of “Strange New Land: Africans in Colonial America” and three books on the Black images created by the American artist Winslow Homer. After he retired from teaching at Duke University, he moved to Longmont in 2012, according to event information posted on the Museum’s website.
Longmont Museum members can attend the 7:30 p.m. event at the Stewart Auditorium, but seating is limited to 45 people and COVID-related safety measures will be in place. Reservations are required and can be made here or by calling 303-651-8374.
The discussion will be livestreamed on the Museum’s Facebook page and by Longmont Public Media and also can be viewed on Comcast channels 8 and 880.
