{"id":15725,"date":"2023-11-03T11:43:50","date_gmt":"2023-11-03T18:43:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/?p=15725"},"modified":"2026-04-20T11:38:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T18:38:29","slug":"reclaiming-the-legacies-of-the-civil-rights-movement-book-event-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2023\/11\/03\/reclaiming-the-legacies-of-the-civil-rights-movement-book-event-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Reclaiming the Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement&#8217; book event recap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-hero \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-hero\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n<div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n          \n<div class=\"f--field f--image\">\n\n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n    \n              \n      <img\n                            data-src=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/11\/HajBookEvent_Panel-768x432.jpg\"\n          data-srcset=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/11\/HajBookEvent_Panel-1920x1080.jpg 1920w,https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/11\/HajBookEvent_Panel-1280x720.jpg 1280w,https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/41\/2023\/11\/HajBookEvent_Panel-768x432.jpg 768w\"          data-sizes=\"(min-width:1200px) 75vw, (min-width:768px) 83vw, 100vw\"          class=\"lazyload\"\n        \n                  alt=\"a seated audience in front of a panel of speakers at the USC University Club scriptorium\"\n        \n        \n                                      \/>\n\n    \n    \n  \n  \n\n<\/div>\n  \n  \n  <div class=\"text-wrapper\">\n    \n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--page-title\">\n\n    \n  <h1>&#8216;Reclaiming the Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement&#8217; book event recap<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n    \n          <strong class=\"author-field\"><span >By<\/span>By Paris Villoria, ERI Project Assistant<\/strong>\n    \n          <span class=\"post-date-field\">November 3, 2023<\/span>\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--social-share \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--social-share\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"content-wrapper\">\n    <span class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_32 addtoany_list\" style=\"line-height: 32px;\">\n      <span class=\"title\">\n        Share\n      <\/span>\n                        <a class=\"a2a_button_copy_link\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"\/#copy_link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"Link\">\n            <span class=\"a2a_svg a2a_s__default a2a_s_copy_link\">\n              <svg height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 19 19\" width=\"19\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\"><path d=\"m7.43475275 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     >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <div class=\"video-embed\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EiOHTA3XEOM?si=ukFJzcOL-uv4jlY2\" title=\"Reclaiming the Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">On Thursday, October 5, 2023, USC Equity Research Institute (ERI) and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/orsl.usc.edu\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">USC Office of Religious and Spiritual Life<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> co-hosted a book talk celebrating Professor Hajar Yazdiha\u2019s recent publication of <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/press.princeton.edu\/books\/paperback\/9780691246475\/the-struggle-for-the-peoples-king\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Struggle for the People\u2019s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement<\/span><\/i><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. Dean of Religious Life <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/orsl.usc.edu\/team\/varun-soni\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Varun Soni<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> moderated the discussion between panelists <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/faculty.sites.uci.edu\/nicholls\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Walter J. Nicholls<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, UCI Professor of Urban Planning, and Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunter, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/soc.ucla.edu\/person\/marcus-anthony-hunter\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">UCLA Professor of Sociology and African American Studies<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, to dive into intersectional themes and insights of the book related to multicultural democracy, identity, and the remaking of collective memory.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">ERI Associate Director and USC Professor <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/profile\/jody-agius-vallejo\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Jody Agius Vallejo<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> kicked off the event with an introduction of ERI and the panelists, land acknowledgement, and co-sponsors <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/soci\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">USC Department of Sociology<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&amp;q=Levan+Institute+of+Humanities\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Levan Institute of Humanities<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> before turning it over to Dr. Soni to start with an overview of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Book origins and key takeaways | Professor Yazdiha<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Soni began the discussion by asking Professor Yazdiha to share why she wrote the book and her learnings. Yazdiha shared that the changing landscape in the post-Obama years during her graduate years led her to investigate reactionary right-wing politics, its rise to the Supreme Court and pertinence in mainstream life, as well as its distorted utilization of Dr. King\u2019s words to justify their agenda to roll back voting rights, claim affirmative action as a form of reverse racism, and more. Combing through 40 years of data and thousands of documents from 1980-2020, Yazdiha sought to trace the evolution of how Dr. King&#8217;s words are currently used to fight against what he fought for.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Yazdiha shared three takeaways of the book to lead the discussion: (1) intentional strategy of misusing the past and convenient posturing by political strategists; (2) severe consequences for multicultural democracy with misuses of memory on who counts as an American; and (3) wealth of learning opportunities in the civil rights movement and the legacies of the Black freedom struggle to light the way for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Curricular Revisions and Black History | Professor Hunter\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Next, in referencing Professor Hunter\u2019s <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/books\/story\/2023-02-03\/uclas-first-african-american-studies-chair-the-college-board-just-erased-u-s-history\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Los Angeles Times Op-Ed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Dr. Soni invited Professor Hunter to touch on book bannings and curricular revisionism related to recent events and themes of the book. Hunter\u2019s favorite aspect of the book was its theme of time and memory as currency\u2014with recognition of currency beyond common forms of money\u2014due to the explicit and implicit demonstration of the power that Black memory holds. He expanded that although this power is deep and widely-used to advance action, it is barred from being taught, learned, and used.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cWe, as Black people, are constantly told through a steady diet of information and misinformation that our history is vacant.\u201d &#8211; Professor Hunter<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He described political Blackness and the tokenization of the identity that Malcolm X helped actualize among people to lean into an American identity and place themselves adjacent to Blackness. With the memory of Black history and its ability to move the needle in America, Hunter hoped that the book would encourage Black people to reclaim and use that power.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Political empowerment and identity | Professor Nicholls<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bringing in intersectional themes of memory and storytelling in immigration, Dr. Soni then asked Professor Nicholls to discuss the construction of identity that stigmatized groups undergo to legitimize representation. Introducing his research focused on undocumented immigration, Nicholls stated that it is necessary for stigmatized groups to construct political representation to achieve voice in the political sphere. Nicholls pointed to the idea of assimilation, central to Dr. King\u2019s message in \u201cAmerican Dream\u201d and the undocumented immigrant youth movement\u2019s DREAMers, in generating legitimacy for inclusion for groups that have been othered. Through this necessary process of constructing representation and reconstructing identity, these groups employ language, images, representations, and performances that resonate with dominant cultural norms\u2014raising the issue that this necessity is contradictory for inclusion due to its effect of changing, rather than transforming, the boundaries of citizenship.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By constructing representation that aligns with dominant norms to pursue inclusion, groups will have an elevated platform in the political sphere that is systematically placed in a hierarchy of representation that ultimately reinforces and reproduces the exclusionary and dominant norms of citizenships against other stigmatized groups. Calling to the kingmakers and gatekeepers mentioned in Yazdiha\u2019s book, Nicholls described the hierarchy in the representational process of producing voice, representation, and identity, in which those constructing those representations are often those with cultural, financial, and political resources within movements of the most marginalized people. Ultimately, he said, achieving political empowerment means alienating yourself from the means of representation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Narratives as racial wedges | Professor Yazdiha<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In sharing his own experiences of benefiting from civil rights movements and effectively participating in historical retelling, Dr. Soni brought up the weaponization of narratives used against Black and Latinx communities that Professor Yazdiha wrote in her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/opinion\/story\/2023-08-28\/march-on-washington-martin-luther-king-racial-progress-black-americans\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Los Angeles Times Op-Ed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">. He asked Yazdiha to talk about the tension of being the beneficiaries of something and in some ways exploiting it. Yazdiha explained that the model minority trope is used as harmful talking points for meritocracy and the American Dream because of the history of U.S. migration in making claims to and approximating whiteness. Anti-Blackness is so deeply embedded in society that non-white immigrants making their way often do reproduce and recreate anti-Blackness, despite not having ill will, as history does not allow them to be separate from white supremacy. In describing the depth of solidarity politics to bridge solidarity across race and class, Yazdiha said there must be a true and honest commitment to seeing each other\u2019s humanity while confronting immigrant communities\u2019 anti-Blackness and\u00a0 understanding complicity in racialized systems in the process of historical reckoning.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>State of movements | Professor Hunter<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In explaining how Professor Hunter coined Black Lives Matter, Dr. Soni asked his thoughts about the connection with the civil rights movement in memory and storytelling to BLM. On racial reckoning, Hunter said that it is some form of progress to even talk about it. Despite the civil rights period often being lauded as a defining moment in American history and many of its figures are still alive today, Hunter describes that the key difference now is there is no mass demonstration aligned with progressive legislation for Black Liberation at all because it must be demonstrated on the steps of the White House. Recalling his own organizing experiences, Hunter stated that movements are not connected in the way we think we are because of the lack of presence and awareness. Hunter ended by saying that this prolonged period of reflection must be realized into collective action in order to hold electeds accountable on their equity promises.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Incubating activism | Professor Nicholls<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Dr. Soni guided the discussion to Professor Nicholls\u2019 research on lived environments of cities and its intersection with storytelling and historical reimagination in incubating activism at scale. Nicholls affirmed that intersection by explaining the materiality of oppression and resistance, and linking that to people\u2019s ability to resist within the conditions of places that support the most marginalized. With cities providing vital resources and aid for marginalized groups, these places also give rise to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newschool.edu\/nssr\/faculty\/Nancy-Fraser\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nancy Fraser\u2019s<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, New School Professor of Philosophy and Politics, idea of the \u201c<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/466240\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">counterpublic<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d\u2014spaces for storytelling and dialogue in which people connect in and make sense of their oppression. It is at this scale of local spaces that the conception of oppression seeds to give understanding to issues brought by systemic design, while also building an identity to act and mobilize as a collective. These multiscalar strategies of starting locally and building through state and national networks to get to the federal government, Nicholls critiqued, is what the left is lacking due to its centralized focus on legislation at the federal level. This is trending at the left across its various movements, leaving counties and cities open to the right, who have built their capacity and created absolute lines down to the level of school districts, and solidified their hold upward. In the end, Nicholls stated, the city still matters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><b>Book Reflections | Professor Yazdiha<\/b><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the book celebration came to a close for Q&amp;A, Dr. Soni invited Professor Yazdiha to share some final reflections. Yazdiha revealed that she always wanted to write a book, as books were a space to escape from a world that made her feel like an outsider. She saw this process as an escape, but it was precisely through writing that she realized the multipurpose of words that serve to awaken, confront, and reimagine. As multicultural democracy must be fought for and preserved, she reframed how\u00a0 words can be a place to envision and speculate about futures as a space of liberation to imagine what could be. Professor Yazdiha closed the panel by imparting\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">one of her favorite quotes empowering imaginations\u00a0 from Dr. King Jr.\u2019s &#8220;Beyond Vietnam&#8221; speech:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cNow let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter\u2014but beautiful\u2014struggle for a new world.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n\n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--rich-text \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--rich-text\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n      \n<div class=\"f--field f--wysiwyg\">\n\n    \n  <hr \/>\n<p>Blog co-edited by Gladys Malibiran, ERI Communications Manager and Shawntae Mitchum, ERI Research Assistant<\/p>\n<p>\u00a9 2023. This work is licensed under a <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n  \n        \n  \n    \n\n\n\n\n\n\n<div\n  class=\"cc--component-container cc--article-related-stories \"\n\n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  >\n  <div class=\"c--component c--article-related-stories\"\n    \n      >\n\n    \n  <div class=\"inner-wrapper\">\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--section-title\">\n\n    \n  <h2>\n          Explore other articles\n      <\/h2>\n\n\n<\/div>\n    \n                  <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/06\/23\/cidp-brief-ice-aapi-data\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >BRIEF: ICE Arrests Among AAPI Californians Increased Tenfold in 2025<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/06\/12\/californias-aging-crisis\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >California&#8217;s Aging Crisis<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n              <article>\n              \n<div class=\"f--field f--cta-title\">\n\n    \n  <h3>\n          <a href=\"https:\/\/dornsife.usc.edu\/eri\/2026\/06\/09\/this-is-life-in-ice-detention\/\" \n                        class=\"\" \n      >This Is Life in ICE Detention<\/a>\n      <\/h3>\n\n\n<\/div>\n        <\/article>\n            <\/div>\n\n\n  <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":15740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[27,32],"class_list":["post-15725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eri-news","category-events","tag-book","tag-event"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Reclaiming the Legacies of the Civil Rights Movement&#039; 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