History Department Will Lead Fall Series Based on The 1619 Project

Inspired by the Times' endeavor, and galvanized to address the legacy of deadly racism that continues today, faculty members in Bowdoin's history department are launching a series of events for the Bowdoin community this autumn.

Though primarily intended to engage first-year students in "substantive and timely discussions" on race in this country, the Zoom webinar program is open to the whole campus and wider public.

"This initiative grew out of calls from our students and colleagues to address the outrage, protests, and pain following the murder of George Floyd, as well as the continuing importance of the Black Lives Matter movement," said Brian Purnell, Bowdoin's Geoffrey Canada Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History. In May, Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis after it was reported he may have used a counterfeit twenty dollar bill at a neighborhood market. 

The department will hold three public forums—on September 11, September 25, and October 16—that will be focused on ten articles from The 1619 Project. It will host a final session on November 6 following the 2020 election.

"The goals of these gatherings are three-fold: to affirm the history department's and Bowdoin College's continued commitment to inclusion and diversity in light of recent events; to use our skills as historians to analyze and share our interpretations of this current moment of racial reckoning for the Bowdoin community with the help of The 1619 Project; and to answer the call from academic affairs to create programming for students, especially first-years on campus, during this difficult time," Purnell said.

For each session, two or three history professors will begin by speaking for twenty to thirty minutes about the readings (see the NYT links below). They will then facilitate a conversation with participating first-year students for the remaining hour.