The undersigned members of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of History express their collective grief, anger, and resolve in response to the murder of George Floyd, and the killings of so many African Americans that have in recent weeks shocked the nation’s conscience, including Breonna Taylor, killed by police as she slept in her own apartment, Ahmaud Arbery, pursued and killed by white vigilantes, and Tony McDade, an unarmed Black trans man who was gunned down by police. We grieve because we insist that Black Lives Matter, even though our nation has frequently acted as though they do not. We feel anger as we witness racist violence, repeated over and over without accountability or reparation. We hope for a better day in this country, when African Americans, Latinas/Latinos/Latinxs, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and other minoritized populations no longer face the burdens of systemic racism, buttressed by the forces of policing and incarceration, that the privilege of whiteness continually seeks to obscure and erase.
As historians, we know that that better day will not come through an abstract force called progress, but through the actions of people resolved to make meaningful change. We stand in solidarity and community with those fighting for change and challenging structures of racism and injustice.
As historians, we also know that such struggles are never neat or without difficulty. In another moment of grave national crisis, the fugitive slave, abolitionist, and writer Frederick Douglass put it this way: “The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.”
We draft this statement of solidarity keenly aware that our own institution has to play a role in this quest for meaningful change. We call on all members of our UW-Madison community to commit to the eradication of white supremacy, institutional racism, and anti-Black violence. We have a lot of work to do. We can only do it together.
- Leonora Neville, Chair, Department of History, John and Jeanne Rowe Chair of Byzantine History
- April R. Haynes, Associate Chair, Associate Professor of History
- Joe Dennis, Associate Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies
- Sarah Thal, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of History; David Kuenzi and Mary Wyman Professor of History
- Leslie Abadie, Graduate Program Coordinator
- Todd Anderson, Academic Department Administrator
- Mou Banerjee, Assistant Professor of History
- Amos Bitzan, Frances and Laurence Weinstein Assistant Professor of History
- Laird Boswell, Professor
- Scott Burkhardt, Undergraduate Advisor
- Kacie Lucchini Butcher, Director of the UW-Madison Public History Project
- Emily Callaci, Associate Professor of History
- Eric Carlsson, Lecturer in History and Religious Studies
- Giuliana Chamedes, Assistant Professor of History
- Cindy I-Fen Cheng, Robinson Edwards Professor of American History and Asian American Studies; Director, Asian American Studies Program
- Kathryn Ciancia, Assistant Professor of History
- William Cronon, Frederick Jackson Turner and VIlas Research Professor of History, Geography, and Environmental Studies
- Suzanne Desan, Vilas Shinners Professor of History
- Skye Doney, George L. Mosse Program in History
- Paige Glotzer, Assistant Professor and John W. and Jeanne M. Rowe Chair in the History of American Politics, Institutions, and Political Economy
- Pablo F. Gómez, Associate Professor of History and Medical History
- Christina Greene, Chair, Department of Afro-American Studies; History Department Affiliated Faculty
- Anne R. Hansen, Professor of History and Religious Studies
- Elizabeth Hennessy, Assistant Professor of History and Environmental Studies
- Francine Hirsch, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History
- Judith Houck, Professor of History and Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies
- Florence C. Hsia, Professor of History of Science
- Charles Kim, Director, Center for East Asian Studies; Korea Foundation Associate Professor of Korean Studies
- Judd Kinzley, Associate Professor of History
- Patrick Iber, Assistant Professor of History
- Pernille Ipsen, Associate Professor in History and Gender and Women’s Studies
- Steve Kantrowitz, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History
- Richard C. Keller, Professor of History and Medical History
- Marc Kleijwegt, Professor of History
- Neil Kodesh, Director, African Studies Program; Professor of History
- Elizabeth Lapina, Associate Professor of Medieval History
- Susan Lederer, Robert Turell Professor of Medical History and Bioethics, Chair Department of Medical History and Bioethics
- Christina Matta, Undergraduate Career Advisor and Alumni Liaison
- Alfred W. McCoy, Harrington Professor of History
- David McDonald, Alice D. Mortenson/Petrovich Distinguished Chair in Russian History
- Tony Michels, George L. Mosse Professor of American Jewish History
- Gregg Mitman, Vilas Research and William Coleman Professor of History, Medical History, and Environmental Studies
- Alexandra Mountain, Alan H. Selig Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Sport and Society
- Viren Murthy, Associate Professor of History
- Adam R. Nelson, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor
- Nicole C. Nelson, Assistant Professor of Science and Technology Studies
- Lynn K. Nyhart, Vilas-Bablitch-Kelch Distinguished Achievement Professor
- Sophie Olson, Undergraduate Program Coordinator
- Brenda Gayle Plummer, Merze Tate Professor of History
- Marla A. Ramírez, Assistant Professor of History and Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies
- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, Merle Curti and Vilas-Borghesi Distinguished Achievement Professor of History
- William J. Reese, Vilas Research Professor
- Mary Louise Roberts, WARF Lucie Aubrac Distinguished Professor and Plaenert-Bascom Professor of History
- Aaron Rock-Singer, Assistant Professor of History
- Jenny Schumacher, Curricular Coordinator
- Mitra Sharafi, Professor of Law and Legal Studies, with History affiliation
- Karl Shoemaker, Professor of History and Law
- Megan Stanton, Associate Lecturer of History and Chicana/o & Latina/o Studies
- Alexander Statman, A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow
- Katharina Steiner, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
- Walter C. Stern, Assistant Professor of Educational Policy Studies and History
- Daniel Stolz, Kemal H. Karpat Assistant Professor of History
- Claire Taylor, Associate Professor and John and Jeanne Rowe Chair of Ancient Greek History
- Daniel Usishkin, Associate Professor of History
- Jana Valeo, Payroll and Financial Coordinator
- Lee Palmer Wandel, WARF Michael Baxandall and Linda and Stanley Sher Professor of History
- Gloria McCahon Whiting, E. Gordon Fox Assistant Professor of History
- Louise Young, Professor of History, Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences