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…

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Ted 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…

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Confrontation: 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…

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Covid 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…

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A Conversation with Theodore D. Segal

Publication date for POINT OF RECKONING: The Fight for Racial Justice at Duke University is just a month away and we thought it was a good time to talk more about the story and ideas behind the book. We put together this Q&A with Ted Segal in the hope that it would spark further conversations…

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Martin Luther King Jr.’s visit to Duke University

A B&W photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr at a podium with a bright light shining just to the left of his face and a fern to the left of the podium.

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…

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“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…

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Government 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…

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About the Cover for POINT OF RECKONING

Book cover of Point of Reckoning by Theodore D. Segal

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…

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Duke’s May Queen

Wilhelmina Reuben, May Queen, 1967 (Duke University Archives)

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…

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