By Cheryl Bailey
On May 18, 2025, Dr. Walter Greason of Macalester College presented a session entitled "Five Years Later–Anti-Racism and Global Protest Against Police Violence." Dr. Greason is the DeWitt Professor of History at Macalester College. It was a hybrid program with in-person attendance and a Zoom webcast.
Highlights
- Racial uprisings are not rare in the U.S., but more have been perpetrated by whites, and kept nearly invisible to the public and in standard history teaching.
- We must be knowledgeable about and vigilant against the future (and current) use of AI in surveillance. ALL our devices, including cars and household appliances, can watch and report our interests and searches.
- Historical research in Urban Studies was popularized at the University of Chicago, with eventual emphasis on the coasts, going to high population areas. Dr. Greason favors the rural and less populated towns as a starting point to avoid missing critical historical perspectives.
- Progress is not linear, despite what some historians might imply.
League member Janiece Kirton interviewed Walter Greason, Ph.D., about the last five years the world has spent learning, reflecting, and reacting to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Officer Derrick Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes, and citizens surrounding the officer, including EMTs, begged him to let off as Floyd repeated that he could not breathe. The MPD reported the next day that Floyd died “while resisting arrest from a medical incident during police interaction.” The world knew differently, thanks to the videography of 17-year-old Darnella Frazier, who won a special journalist award by the Pulitzer Prize Board. Despite the COVID pandemic, millions of citizens around the world marched, arm in arm, and demanded justice for George Floyd.
During the global unrest that followed, Dr. Greason recalled a class he once taught on all the race riots and uprisings in American History. There are so many incidents of white citizens attacking blacks, burning black neighborhoods, homes, and businesses, and lynching, that his students couldn’t stand the intensity of the horrors. Some left classes early, and some even vomited at the atrocities. Whites made postcards out of lynching scenes, and kept body parts of their victims. We learned again that history taught can omit trends and events, and Dr. Greason learned he must divide the course into more tolerable segments.
His scholarship on AI, which he stressed is clearly a part of our everyday lives, with the caveat that the surveillance state already exists, and has the potential to be weaponized against multiple communities. Macalester College makes it a priority to protect students and faculty from this, and he urges students and viewers to turn cameras off, be mindful of all “smart” appliances, and to assume that companies and governments are interested in all our data.
Dr. Greason studies consent agreements, such as the one made by the Justice Department and the Minneapolis Police Department. Dr. Greason feels one reason Minnesota is in a good position relative to other states is the strong legal leadership of Attorney General Keith Ellison. He has lived all over the U.S., and feels somewhat optimistic that Minnesota’s leaders try to advocate for the rule of law and racial justice. Is there still work to be done? Of course. But Dr. Greason appreciates organizations like the League which persevere in the cause of liberty and justice for all.
(NB, this Zoom session was not recorded, so unfortunately there will not be a YouTube video).
Next event: Annual Meeting Monday, June 9th at the Minnesota Humanities Center.
Starting in the fall, we will be holding in-person programs at the George Latimer Central Library in St. Paul on Sunday afternoons at 1:30 p.m. in the Otto Bremer Room. Street parking is free downtown (on Sundays), the building is historic and opens at 1pm, and it’s a wonderful chance to see friends and learn together.
Current dates are: September 21st, October 19th, and November 16th. Topics TBD.
