CDF Newsletter: October 2021

TEAM HIGHLIGHT

As part of our internal Crafting Democratic Futures communications, we highlight one team’s story every month.

This month, we’re sharing broadly the work of the Carnegie Mellon University team.

“Pittsburgh’s ‘Democratic Futures’ project brings together college and university humanities scholars with community-based organizations and grassroots social activists to produce a comprehensive history of Pittsburgh’s African American experience from its inception during late colonial era through recent times,” writes Dr. Joe William Trotter Jr., the Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice and the PI of the Carnegie Mellon University site team. “We will document past and present racial injustices, alongside the ebb and flow of social and political movements to combat inequality, including forms of interracial cooperation as well as conflict.”

“Against the grain of widespread popular perceptions that the enslavement of Black people in Pittsburgh was minimal or nonexistent, our project seeks to uncover the legacy of slavery in Pittsburgh and Western Pennsylvania.”

Read more about the Pittsburgh team’s project here.