Race and Identity in Greensboro, North Carolina
 
There's a great article in today's Sunday Globe about the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Committee in Greensboro, North Carolina, to help that community deal with the lingering effects of a shoot-out between Communist union organizers (some white, some black) and Klan members that left several people dead in 1979.
 
Interestingly, I'll be speaking at a conference in Greensboro in September called "Creating Identity and Empire in the Atlantic World, 1492-1888."  Implicit in this conference subject is the acute problem of making race and difference.  Although this conference stops just shy of the twentieth century and the making of modern scientific racism, perhaps our deliberations will help shed light on why these problems continue to persist.