This month, the executive director’s column describes the AHA’s new initiative to document and reckon with its role in the dissemination and legitimation of racist historical scholarship. As part of that project, the AHA will address questions about how the Association contributed to the neglect of work by scholars of color. In “Diversity Demands Struggle,” David A. Varel chronicles how historian Lawrence Reddick fought to center the work and perspectives of Black historians in the mid-20th century. The AHA is committed to understanding its role in the evolution and persistence of American racism and to identifying what it can do going forward.
Photo courtesy of the Photographs and Prints Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library Archives. Public domain.
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