February 22, 2023 marked the inaugural Genna Rae McNeil lecture event for Black History Month. While the lecture series has taken place for almost two decades at UNC, this year’s event is the first under a new name – honoring the History Department’s own Genna Rae McNeil. McNeil was the first African-American tenure-track faculty member in the History Department, specializing in African American history and U.S. social movements in the 20th century. McNeil retired in in 2021 after thirty-six years at UNC. She was presented with the namesake honor at the event by keynote speaker and close friend Dr. Vincent Brown, the Charles Warren Professor of American History at Harvard University.
McNeil has advocated for the importance of African American history throughout her extensive career. The lecture series is a testament to her important work throughout her time at UNC, including ensuring that the Black History Month lecture became a yearly tradition on campus. “I am so immensely honored that former students and other alumnae/i valued my efforts to bring truth in history to each class period and teach critical thinking,” she said in an email interview with the Daily Tar Heel’s Corey Davis. “It is just so humbling that this lecture bears my name.”
The lecture series, jointly organized by the Sonja Hayes Stone Center and the Department, was established with the goal of highlighting the importance of Black history for understanding American history, as well as the development of the region and the country. The lectures are open to the public, prioritizing the goal of community outreach and education. The series has now secured an endowment from generous donors in order to support the event in the coming years. This permanent financial support will allow the series to continue on with its mission of education and community engagement for the foreseeable future.
Dr. Lisa Lindsay, one of the organizers of the event, hopes that the series provides a spotlight on the important work of historians in addressing contemporary questions and dilemmas. “The lecture series exemplifies what the University says is its mission, which is to bring academic work into broader discussions and into service of the public,” she comments. “The series shows the importance of Black history in the historical profession, in our university, and in our state.” Invited guest speakers educate the audience with a historical perspective, and explain how this perspective is relevant to understanding the present.
Speakers for the lecture series are chosen not only for their outstanding contribution to the profession, but also their ability to communicate ideas and engage with a wider audience made up of academics and community members alike. This year’s keynote speaker, Vincent Brown, specializes in African diaspora studies and the history of slavery in the Americas. His latest work, Tacky’s Revolt: The Story of an Atlantic Slave War (Belknap Press, 2020) won multiple awards and was named one of the Best Books of 2020 by both The Guardian and The Observer. Brown’s work extends outside of academia: he is also the producer of a documentary series for PBS about the controversial work of Dr. Melville Herskovits on Black cultural identity.
After honoring Genna Rae McNeil in the event’s introduction, Brown lectured on the importance of Black history. He explained to the audience how Black history is not an isolated sub-discipline of American history, but is intertwined with that history as a whole. Brown discussed how including the story of Black historical agents when analyzing pivotal events in American history enriches our understanding of the country’s past. He advocated for the importance of the inclusion of Black history into a general history curriculum, despite recent political pushback against the idea. Brown concluded that understanding Black history is more important than ever, especially as lawmakers across the country try to ban concepts such as Critical Race Theory from school curricula.
Maddie McGrady, a graduate student in the History Department, described Brown’s lecture as engaging and important. “Dr. Brown emphasized how Black history is U.S. American history,” she said, “For example, events in Jamaica in the 1760s directly impacted the trajectory of the American Revolution. Dr. Brown’s powerful conclusion was that reframing understandings of U.S. histories as emergent from Black or African histories can advance equity and justice in the present.”
The Genna Rae McNeil lecture series is a testament to the importance of the historical profession, not only in understanding the past but also in making sense of the present. With a source of future funding secured, the series will be able to continue its mission for years to come.
– Dani McIvor