Annette Gordon-Reed, renowned historian, professor and author, visited the University of Central Missouri on Sept. 22, 2022 as part of Constitution Week.

  “This all started with an anonymous donation to history and political science,” Joshua Nygren, professor and History program coordinator, said. 

  The donation stipulated that the funds would first be used to host a speaker before contributing to scholarships. 

   Nygren worked with Michael Makara, associate professor of comparative politics and international relations, to decide who they would invite to the university.

  “We compiled a wish list,” Nygren said. “Gordon-Reed was at the top.”

  Gordon-Reed’s speech focused on American history as it relates to the struggle for equality since the Revolutionary War and how those struggles will shape the future of the country. 

  “This was exactly the type of talk that I think Constitution Week is all about,” Nygren said, “which is big questions in American history and big questions about not just history sealed in the past and a time capsule, but history and how it affects today.”

  The College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences teamed up with the American Democracy Project and the Center for Multiculturalism and Inclusivity to gather the funds to host Gordon-Reed. 

 The American Democracy Project is an organization on campus whose goal is to help college students participate and engage in politics. Every year, they plan a week of events to celebrate the framers’ signing of the final draft of the Constitution on Sept. 17, 1787.

  After making their list, Nygren and Makara contacted Shari Bax, the Vice President of Student Experience and Engagement and the campus coordinator for the American Democracy Project, about inviting Gordon-Reed.

  Bax also reached out to the director of the Center for Multiculturalism and Inclusivity, Lover Chancler, to see if the Center would be interested in also sponsoring Gordon-Reed’s visit.

  “From the faculty staff perspective, we are interested in bringing such scholars to campus to put models of scholarship before our students,” Bax said. “And preferably models of diverse scholarship, diverse thought.”

  Gordon-Reed studies foundational parts of America’s history with an emphasis on the Black experience, and she reflected on her own life in her speech. Gordon-Reed discussed how she can be hopeful for a future in which people of color have equality while also studying and writing on a violently inequitable past.

  “She studied a part of history that’s not always often talked about,” Chancler said. “It’s often important to have both of those identities connect to help [students] see how things came to be as it related to not just history from an outside perspective, but also from an inside perspective, as well.”