Dr. Charles McKinney, associate professor of history at Rhodes, will discuss and sign copies of his new book, From Rights to Lives: The Evolution of the Black Freedom Struggle, Sept. 12 beginning at 5:30 p.m. in Blount Auditorium of Buckman Hall on campus. A reception will follow the talk.
The event is free. However, attendees from the public are asked to register using this link. Those who have preregistered will be emailed a parking pass to go through the Rhodes College gates. All other visitors will be asked to show a valid driver’s license or other approved government ID.
In the book published by Vanderbilt University Press (March 2024), McKinney and co-editor Françoise N. Hamlin have put together a collection of works by scholars discussing the similarities, differences, and underrepresented aspects of the mid-twentieth century Civil Rights Movement and the newer #BlackLivesMatter Movement.
According to the description of From Rights to Lives, “McKinney and Hamlin invite the contributors to take up what we can learn when we place these moments of struggle in dialogue with each other. They grapple with how our understanding of the postwar moment shapes our analysis of #BLM and wherein lie the discontinuities, in order to glean lessons for future moments of insurgency.”
At Rhodes, McKinney teaches courses that focus on the African American experience in the United States, and his primary research interests include the Civil Rights Movement and the Black freedom struggle in Memphis. He also is the author of Greater Freedom: The Evolution of the Civil Rights Struggle in Wilson, North Carolina, and co-editor of An Unseen Light: Black Struggles for Freedom in Memphis, Tennessee.
For more information about the event, contact the Department of History at 901-843-3662.