Symbols of Democracy, Interracial Friendships

in cooperation with the Museum THE KENNEDYS and the Heinrich Böll Foundation

presents

John Stauffer, Harvard University

with a lecture on Symbols of Democracy in the United States:  Stories of Race and Friendship

How do we know when democracy is desired?  In the United States, interracial friendship has been the clearest guide, a rich symbol of the nation’s ideals of freedom and equality of opportunity.  From the nation’s founding to the present, politicians, reformers, writers, and artists have imagined democracy in America through interracial friendships.  In order to see how such friendships have shaped American culture, one need only consider the relationships of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, Ishmael and Queequeg, and Huck and Jim in the Civil War era, on down to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Lyndon Johnson, Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo, and Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis (on screen) during the Civil Rights era, along with countless others. 

On the eve of the inauguration of President Obama, who has repeatedly expressed his admiration for Abraham Lincoln, Professor Stauffer’s talks will focus on a few iconic interracial friendships, exploring how they symbolized American ideals and transformed the nation.

Prof. Jörg Nagler, Friedrich Schiller Universität Jena, will moderate the discussion.