City Of Fort Worth: Workshop To Review First Year Of TCU Race Initiative

Dallas TX

01 June, 2021

2:57 PM

Description

Press release from City of Fort Worth: June 01, 2021 The civil and racial unrest in summer 2020 prompted TCU to take a closer look at its own past relating to race and people of color. Frederick Gooding Jr. is chairman of the university's Race and Reconciliation Initiative. The main goal of the initiative is to understand the past through research to reveal important, untold stories. Gooding will share findings of the Race and Reconciliation Initiative in its first year during a virtual presentation set for 10:30 a.m. to noon Saturday, June 5. Register to participate.  "Essentially what we're looking to do is communicate," said Gooding, who is an associate professor in TCU's Honors College. "We're trying to let people know that this is something that we're taking seriously and we're looking into it more seriously. That's just a start." The Race and Reconciliation Initiative was born out of much of the civil and racial unrest of last year. "The summer of social justice was a key factor to pushing it forward to this degree," Gooding said. "Many good people have been doing a lot of good work for a long time on our campus, but the events of last summer really helped to celebrate this idea of awareness and what can we do." The first year of the Race and Reconciliation Initiative focused on Black Americans and TCU's relationship with racism, slavery and the Confederacy. By putting a mirror up its own history, Gooding hopes to provide clearer understanding of what came before and how the TCU community can determine its future legacy. "I don't think we should be afraid of the past anymore," he said. "Rather than erase it, I think it's time we embrace it. The sooner we're able to come together and have these conversations, then we can actually move forward together." The partnership between the Fort Worth Public Library and the Center for Texas Studies has been ongoing for more than a decade, bringing in speakers on a variety of topics pertaining to Texas history once a month several times a year.     Get articles like this in your inbox. Subscribe to City News.   This press release was produced by City of Fort Worth. The views expressed here are the author's own.