Dr. William D. Green: “The easiest way to lose the soul of one’s achievements is to become complacent.”

In this episode of Black Market Reads, Lissa speaks with historian and educator Dr. William D. Green to discuss his works on the history of race and civil rights in Minnesota. Dr. Green is a professor of history at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and serves as Vice President of the Minnesota Historical society. He is the author of several works including A Peculiar Imbalance in Early Minnesota: 1837-1869, Degrees of Freedom: The Origin of Civil Rights in Minnesota, 1865-1914, which won the 2015 Minnesota Book Award-Hognander Prize, and The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity, 1860-1876 (all published by the University of Minnesota Press).

Episode 48 – Dr. William D. Green

In this episode, Lissa speaks with historian Dr. William D. Green, whose works focus on the history of Black people in Minnesota, and specifically the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Dr. Green is a professor of history at Augsburg University in Minneapolis, and serves as Vice President of the Minnesota Historical Society.

Go Deeper: Additional Materials

Mapping Prejudice

This interactive visualization shows the spread of racially-restrictive deeds across Hennepin County during the first half of the twentieth century. Racial covenants were tools used by real estate developers to prevent people of color from buying or occupying property. Often just a few lines of text, these covenants were inserted into warranty deeds across the country.

10,000 Books Weblog : Minnesota Historical Society Press ” The Story of Jim Thompson

From A Peculiar Imbalance: The Fall and Rise of Racial Inequality in Early Minnesota, by William D. Green Jim Thompson was one of the most unlikely persons Reverend Alfred Brunson would encounter.

Read: proceedings of the Convention of colored citizens of the state of minnesotA, which took place in St. Paul in January of 1869: https://omeka.coloredconventions.org/files/original/b7087fc90751d425e7e55010cd92b818.pdf

Oration by Frederick Douglass, Delivered on the Occasion of the Unveiling of the Freedmen’s Monument in Memory of Abraham Lincoln, in Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. (1876) – Visual Culture of the American Civil War

Creator: Frederick Douglass Publisher: Washington, D.C.: Gibson Brothers Source: Accessed via Internet Archive: http://archive.org/details/orationbyfrederi00doug Friends and Fellow-Citizens: I warmly congratulate you upon the highly interesting object which has caused you to assemble in such numbers and spirit as you have today. This occasion is in some respects remarkable.

Scanned pages from a historical printing of Douglass’s speech is available to view from the Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/resource/lcrbmrp.t0c12/?st=gallery

African American Suffrage in Minnesota, 1868 | MNopedia

From their state’s admission to the Union until the mid-1860s, a majority of Minnesotans advocated the abolition of slavery in the South. African American suffrage, however, did not enjoy the same support. Minnesota’s African American citizens paid taxes, fought in wars, and fostered their communities.

Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute and later formed the National Negro Business League. Although Washington clashed with black leaders such as W. E. B.

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