Our kick off plenary for CRT Summer School focuses on Tennessee as the “tip of the spear” for the nationwide backlash against racial justice and democracy. This plenary will foreground the work of local and state activists working on several overlapping struggles for equity. From legislative battles over Critical Race Theory and reproductive justice to public school funding and assaults on the rights and freedoms of the LGBTQ community, Tennessee activists and progressive lawmakers are fighting against some of the most reactionary legislation and political forces in the country. 

This plenary will outline how the backlash to the racial uprisings of 2020 and the Supreme Court’s dismantling of race-conscious admissions in higher education, provided the fuel for an all-out assault on DEI efforts not only in colleges and universities but also in the public and private sector workforces. This new attack is made possible by an old idea: that anti-racism (whether that is CRT, affirmative action or DEI) is anti-white. 

This plenary will uplift the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer 1964 by highlighting the importance of historical memory in resisting the nationwide assault on racial justice. We will hear from activists from that historic period, who, despite the threat of deadly violence, found strength and inspiration in multiracial community and in the knowledge that emerged from their Freedom Schools. 

Amid ongoing backlash to civil rights and antiracism initiatives – from affirmative action to DEI efforts to school curriculum that deals honestly with the nation’s history – individuals and institutions that proclaim support for racial inclusion have often hedged and run from racial equity as a value. This session will explore how the retreat of our “allies” is both morally suspect and practically counterproductive in the fight for a more just and antiracist society.

The Supreme Court recognized in Brown v. Board of Education that there couldn't be a functioning democracy while there existed a racist, segregated and inequitable school system. That decision was widely embraced as representing the rejection of the continued subordination of Black Americans on account of their race and paved the way for the Civil Rights Movement. This plenary will describe how while racism may reinvent, morph and transform itself our fight to overcome white supremacy must be attentive to its shape shifting nature.

Our closing plenary will reflect upon how an extremist conservative minority has been able to upend broadly shared values of civil rights and multiracial democracy in just a few years by deploying racialized fears to create widespread distrust of our public institutions. The road to autocracy is paved not only by the outrageous actions of those seeking to subvert our democracy, but by good people who stand by and do nothing. Summoning the spirit and courage of Freedom Summer 1964, we will hear from the frontlines about how inspiring leaders and political activists are applying the lessons from Freedom Summer 1964 to 2024.