Tuesday, December 9th Seminar
Nov. 8th Seminar -- Video of Professor Siemers Presentation
"Black Thursday" Oral Histories Exhibit & Other Activities - Nov. 2008
Beginning in Nov. 2008, UW-Oshkosh's Department of History is releasing an oral histories exhibit and kicking off various activities to commemorate "Black Thursday" and other events that illustrate the complex history of race relations as they played out in Oshkosh and other areas in the northern part of the U.S.
Message from UW Oshkosh history professor Stephen Kercher:
Beginning on November 20 and continuing throughout the first two weeks of Black History Month (February) 2009, students throughout the state of Wisconsin will have the opportunity to learn about the complex history of race relations as they played out well north of the Mason-Dixon line. Timed to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the 1968 "Black Thursday" demonstrations on the Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh campus, the November 20 retrospective and the subsequent exhibition on the UW Oshkosh campus have the potential to awaken K-12 and even college students to the fact that the civil rights movement and civil unrest of the Sixties did not escape this region. Indeed, the events of "Black Thursday" shook Northeast/Central and Milwaukee (dubbed the "Selma of the North") in significant ways.
Please feel free to pass along our website (
www.blackthursday.uwosh.edu) to fellow teachers, school administrators and anyone who might be interested in confronting this forgotten episode in modern Wisconsin history. Events will include a special presentation and panel discussion on "Black Thursday" at the Grand Opera House in Oshkosh on November 20th at 7 p.m., and the opening of the oral histories exhibit on November 21st, 10 a.m., at the Gail Floether Steinhilber Art Gallery in the UW Oshkosh's Reeve Memorial Union. Black Thursday Remembered is sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and the Wisconsin Humanities Council.