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Critical Race Conversations

A Folger Institute Fiftieth Anniversary Project

Supported by an initiative in collaborative research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Two rows of 5 early modern portraits in grayscale

About Critical Race Conversations

Constructions of race have upheld racist structures of inequality for hundreds of years. These constructions were founded upon many types of difference, based on faith, on family, on blood and body, on ways of acting and thinking and being in the world. They were so pervasive that they became operative in lived experiences, medical discourses, founding principles, and legal statutes. Racial injustice has been and continues to be systemic and damaging. Today, premodern critical race studies scholars are offering new insights into the prehistory of modern racialized thinking and racism. They are helping to create anti-racist spaces. And they are furthering an overdue and necessary push towards reinvigorated investigations, innovative teaching agendas, and social and political activism, all with the goal of creating a more just, inclusive academy and society.

Full Series of Critical Race Conversations