Overview of Legacy Themes

Each of the Regional Collaboration Partners will focus on one of the following significant legacies of American slavery. This is not an exhaustive list. Indeed, CIC expects that institutional and regional activities across the network of participants will address other legacies of slavery as well, and that institutions or individual faculty members will have compelling reasons to focus on a legacy theme that is coordinated by a regional partner outside of their home region. Download a detailed list of Legacy Themes.

COMMEMORATION AND MEMORY

The selective commemoration and remembrance of slavery, the Civil War, emancipation, and segregation—as well as the expansion of civil rights and the celebration of African American history and identity—through memorials, statues, architecture, place names, or other expressions.

ECONOMIC DISPARITIES

Persistent disparities of wealth, income, and home ownership by race; persistent industrial and economic underdevelopment in parts of the South and cities across the nation; and varieties of unfree and semi-free labor since emancipation.

CONTESTED CITIZENSHIP

The constitutional legacy of slavery—reflected in the jurisprudence initiated by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments—and broader conflicts about rights (especially voting rights), liberties, and civic responsibilities based on race.

CULTURAL CREATIVITY

Cultural expression in all its forms as a way to understand and cope with slavery and its aftermath, including artistic legacies in theater, art, dance, music, poetry, and fiction, but also in popular culture, folklore, and folkways.

RACIAL VIOLENCE AND RESISTANCE

Organized violence against former slaves and their descendants as well as the organized and ad hoc efforts by African Americans and their allies to resist state and extrajudicial violence.

MASS INCARCERATION

The disproportionate representation of African Americans and other people of color in the criminal justice system as well as the effects of incarceration on families, communities, and the formerly incarcerated.

RACE, PLACE, AND MIGRATION

The impact of internal migrations both before and after Emancipation, such as the “Great Migration” of Southern blacks to Northern cities that began in the early 20th century and spurred new forms of spatial segregation (such as “redlining”).

ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE

Slavery’s lasting effects on America’s agricultural system, natural resources, and landscape, explored through environmental history, environmental ethics, and other tools.

RACE, HEALTH, AND MEDICINE

The social and physical legacy of American slavery as reckoned in persistent race-based inequalities in health care, childbirth, and early childhood outcomes—as well as community-based healing and health care traditions.