Themes of "Rescuing Democracy 2022, Before it's Too Late" Conference
The danger that our country’s democracy faces today can’t be stressed strongly enough. The move toward authoritarianism is real and imminent. From the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a violent attempt to overturn an election that was free and fair by reputable accounts, to the recent moves by numerous state legislatures to restrict access to voting, many Americans are aghast at the growing threats to democracy and don’t know what to do about it. Washtenaw Faces Race, the racial justice organization behind the Rescuing Democracy 2022, Before It’s Too Late conference, holds that we must look to the past if we want to understand the present and successfully move toward the future we want to have. The conference will dive deep into the history of anti-democratic forces in our country, with a specific focus on how, from the very beginning, the Founders’ vision of a country in which “All men are created equal” has been flawed by racism and powerful forces favoring a white-dominated oligarchy. We’ll look at the way that the promise of the North’s victory in the Civil War was rapidly undermined during Reconstruction, and at events such as the violent overthrow by whites of the legitimately elected multiracial government in Wilmington, NC in 1898. We’ll grapple with the reality that true democracy did not begin in this country until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, finally creating an equitable, multiracial democracy, but which was soon eroded by the 2013 Supreme Court ruling weakening protections for voting rights, by the racist and autocratic tendencies of Donald Trump’s presidency, and by the persistent power of the oligarchy that has operated in this country since the beginning. What can we do to save democracy? If we want to have a truly inclusive, pluralistic, multicultural democracy, we need to understand our history, and also our responsibility as citizens, and not rely on politicians to create the future. We need to form coalitions, and work together to create a new way of engaging together as citizens. We can choose. Sponsored by Washtenaw Faces Race and Ypsilanti District Library. |
Organized by Washtenaw Faces Race, Washtenaw County, Michigan and the Ypsilanti District Library, Ypsilanti, Michigan.
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