This lecture focuses on the ways in which white racism divided Indians and African-Americans. Race relations in the South developed in the context of a colonial economic system that rested on Indian land and African labor.

The dispossession and expulsion of most Native peoples by 1850 meant that the Indians who remained became a small minority scattered across the region. They struggled to retain their ethnic identity, especially in the Jim Crow era when whites sought to preserve their own racial purity by categorizing both Indians and African-Americans as "colored."

Native communities often set up their own churches and schools, which they closed to African-Americans and defended against integration. The result was the marginalization of Indian people at the time and the subsequent exclusion of Indians from histories of the period.

Lecturer: Theda Perdue, Atlanta Distinguished Professor of Southern culture, UNC

All lectures are free and open to the public. No pre-registration is available and the limited seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For the most up-to-date information about the fall 2009 Hutchins lectures, please visit the Center’s Web site at www.uncsouth.org.

For more information, contact Ann-Louise Aguiar '76 at (919) 962-3574 or ccll@unc.edu.