Publication Date
2025
College
College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences
Department
History, Department of
Student Level
Undergraduate
Presentation Type
Talk/Oral
Summary
The United States has a dark and complicated relationship with the idea of race and what it means to belong to a specific group of people dating back to before the first enslaved African stepped foot onto its shores. The lynching case of Dan Davis showcases this precarious past, as the accounts of his brutal murder convey a level of excitement that was not unusual in these situations, yet he was quickly forgotten about and cast aside like many others who suffered a fate similar to his. This forgetting, the casting aside of traumas, has defined the Black experience since the beginning, and justifications for white superiority have become imperative to defining the Black experience and worked to instill one idea into the fabric of American culture: Black people have, and always will be, the lesser race. Culture, social attitudes, and policy have all come together to sculpt the racial landscape of America and engrain these ideas into the psyche of the American people.
Recommended Citation
South, Shae, "Do You Remember Me?: America's Racist Past and the Construction of "Blackness"" (2025). SPARK Symposium Presentations. 1021.
https://repository.belmont.edu/spark_presentations/1021
