Posts by Theodore D. Segal
Q&A: Point of Reckoning
Last month, at the launch party for Point of Reckoning, I had the opportunity to answer questions about the book posed by Gisela Fosado, my editor at Duke University Press. You can watch the video of the Q&A below. If you have any of your own questions, please feel free to contact me here or…
Read MoreTed Segal Reading from POINT OF RECKONING
On the evening of February 16th, we hosted a launch event for POINT OF RECKONING and below is a video of the portion where I read from the book. Until the fall of 1963, Duke University was segregated, observing all of the laws, regulations, and customs that defined the Jim Crow south. Duke was a…
Read MoreConfrontation: The Anniversary of the Allen Building Takeover
On February 13, 1969, members of the Duke Afro-American Society took bold, direct action to force the university to respond to their demands for racial change. Frustrated by years of delay, they occupied portions of the first floor of the Allen Building – Duke’s main administration building. They wanted change now. “We looked at it…
Read MoreCovid and Anti-Racism
“The Crisis Year” is how the The Chronicle of Higher Education described 2020 in higher education. The Covid-19 pandemic forced schools to implement operational changes of unprecedented scope and to do so on the fly. “Covid-19 touched off a financial wildfire for colleges,” the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote, pushing many “to the edge.” At…
Read MoreMartin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Duke University
In November 1964, Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke at Duke University in Page Auditorium. His remarks captured the tenor of the civil rights protests in Durham and throughout the south. Acknowledging that lagging standards existed among Blacks in some areas, King argued that “economic deprivation and social isolation will breed crime and illiteracy in any…
Read More“From a White Perspective”
Each fall, a new freshman class of Black undergraduates enrolls at Duke. They enter an institution that Duke President Vincent Price has acknowledged has “often not fully embraced” its mission ”to be agents of progress in advancing racial equity and justice.” They encounter, according to Price, “systems of racism and inequality that have shaped the…
Read MoreGovernment On Campus: Then and Now
Since this past summer, historically white universities throughout the nation have sought to reckon with their long histories of anti-Black racism. At Duke, president Vincent Price committed to taking “transformative action now toward eliminating the systems of racism and inequality that have shaped the lived experiences of too many members of the Duke community.” Likewise…
Read MoreAbout the Cover for POINT OF RECKONING
The photographs on the cover of POINT OF RECKONING: The Fight for Racial Justice at Duke University, designed by Matt Tauch, track the arc of desegregation and Black student activism at the school during the Sixties. The cover uses historical images from the Duke Archives that center on the events at Duke University but does…
Read MoreDuke’s May Queen
On September 26, 2020, Duke University announced that the Sociology-Psychology Building on its West Campus was renamed the Wilhelmina Reuben-Cooke Building to recognize Reuben-Cooke’s role as one of the “First Five” Black undergraduates at Duke and her many contributions to the university. A fitting honor, this recognition recalls a different time at Duke, one when…
Read MoreMy Lord, what a night!
On May 5, 1939, Louis E. Austin visited the Duke University campus. Austin, the publisher and editor of The Carolina Times, the leading Black newspaper in North Carolina, observed a school undergoing rapid transformation. Only 15 years had passed since the gift from James B. Duke that transformed Trinity College into a prominent southern university.…
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