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Off the Shelf Author Talk with Rachel Marie-Crane Williams

Diptych. L: Headshot of Rachel Marie-Crane Williams. R: Book Cover of “Run Home If You Don't Want to Be Killed: The Detroit Uprising of 1943”.
Thursday, April 22, 2021
12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Rachel Marie-Crane Williams
Off The Shelf Author Talks

In the heat of June in 1943, a wave of destructive and deadly civil unrest took place in the streets of Detroit. The city was under the pressures of both wartime industrial production and the nascent civil rights movement, setting the stage for massive turmoil and racial violence.

With "Run Home If You Don't Want to Be Killed," Rachel Marie-Crane Williams delivers a graphic retelling of the racism and tension leading up to the violence of those summer days. By incorporating firsthand accounts collected by the NAACP and telling them through a combination of hand-drawn images, historical dialogue and narration, Williams makes the history and impact of these events immediate, and in showing us what happened, she reminds us that many issues of the time - police brutality, state-sponsored oppression, economic disparity, white supremacy - plague our country to this day.Williams is associate professor of art and art history, and gender, women's and sexuality studies, at the University of Iowa.

This virtual event will be hosted by Josh Hockensmith, Art Library technical assistant at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries. This talk is part of Off the Shelf, a collaboration between the University Libraries and the UNC Press to present new works on racial and social justice in our history and our world. The talk is co-presented by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and Arts Everywhere at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Contact: CDS Front Desk