On Inauguration Day 2017, Saint Louis University will host a wide-ranging conversation about the history behind the rise of Donald Trump and racial politics, religious diversity, and social justice in 21st century America.
Speaking at the 2017 John Francis Bannon, S.J., Lecture will be Kambiz GhaneaBassiri, professor of Religion & Humanities at Reed College and author of “A History of Islam in America: From the New World to the New World Order,” and Leah Wright Rigueur, assistant professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and author of “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power.”
They will speak at noon-1:30 p.m. Friday, January 20 in Boileau Hall, 38 Vandeventer Ave. (between Laclede and Lindell) on the campus of Saint Louis University. The title of the talk is “History, Social Justice, and the Age of Trump.”
Wright Rigueur, an expert on the relationship between blacks and the Republican Party, wrote a column for the Virginia Pilot last August that explored the party’s almost complete lack of racial diversity revealed at its presidential convention.
“Of the 2,472 delegates, only 18 were black. It is the lowest percentage on record, lower even than 1964, the year the party selected Barry Goldwater as its presidential nominee,” she wrote.
GhaneaBassiri was used by national media as a national expert on Muslim issues during the presidential campaign. At the second presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said, “We’ve had Muslims in America since George Washington.”
The Associated Press fact-checked this claim with GhaneaBassiri, who “noted that the National Portrait Gallery includes a portrait of Yarrow Mamout, identified as an African-American Muslim man and former slave.”
Stefan Bradley, associate professor in the Department of History/African American Studies at Saint Louis University, said the event “is meant to provide some historical context and contemporary counter-narrative on the day that Trump takes office.”
Bradley said that Wright Rigueur “will discuss the past and current Republican Party and its relationship to black people and women,” while GhaneaBassiri “will cover the plight of Muslims in America and the impediments to freedom they have faced in the past and present.”
The Bannon Lecture honors the life and legacy of Father John Francis Bannon, S.J. For 34 years (1939-1973), Father Bannon served Saint Louis University as a devoted professor and prolific writer. He was also a public intellectual with an abiding commitment to education in its broadest sense. Honoring the example he set, the Bannon Lecture brings to SLU scholars whose work reaches beyond the academy and engages issues in American history of broad public interest.
The Bannon lecture is always free and open to the public. Parking is available streetside on Vandeventer and Sarah and in the SLU Laclede Garage, 3642 Laclede Avenue. Limited handicapped parking is available at Boileau Hall. Signed copies of Dr. GhaneaBassiri and Dr. Rigueur’s books will be available for purchase.
