June 2020: Statement on Black Lives Matter protests

The History Department at Western Kentucky University stands in solidarity with the protests against police brutality carried out in communities across the country. We share President Caboni's insistence that we must continue to work together and stand up for fairness and justice for every person. We also endorse a statement issued by the American Historical Association urging a reckoning with the United States' deplorable record of violence against African Americans, a record that stretches back centuries. The brutal murder of George Floyd laid bare the ongoing, systematic racism embedded in our institutions and civic life. We insist that Black Lives Matter and, therefore, join the African American Studies faculty's urgent call to action and reaffirm our commitment to advocating for social justice. The History Department acknowledges the intellectual debt the historical profession owes to African American Studies, since scholars of the African American experience have been essential to advancing a nuanced understanding of how race and white supremacy have historically developed and operated in local and global contexts. The History Department's faculty is a community of scholars, teachers, and public intellectuals that is committed to combating ignorance, hate, and institutional racism in the classroom, on campus, in our discipline and in the academy, and in the wider world.