May 7
Spring Lefler Lecture - Dr. Scott Gac Born in Blood: The Battlegrounds of American Democracy
Scott Gac is an author, historian, and teacher. He is a Professor of History and American Studies at Trinity College in Connecticut. As Director of Trinity undergraduate and graduate programs in American Studies from 2013-2023, he oversaw curriculum, lectures, working groups, and public outreach for one of the most distinguished liberal arts American Studies endeavors. He has published on American violence in Choice, Rethinking History, and Reviews in American History. His book Born in Blood: Violence and the Making of America (Cambridge University Press, 2024) is based on his popular lecture course of the same name. His first book, Singing for Freedom (Yale Press, 2007), details interracial social activism of the pre-Civil War era through the abolitionist musicians, the Hutchinson Family Singers. In spring 2015, the Rose Ensemble staged this book in a series of performances in St. Paul, Minnesota. Professor Gac is a graduate of Columbia University, The Juilliard School, and The Graduate Center at CUNY.
Born in Blood: The Battlegrounds of American Democracy
Guns at voting sites, Black voter suppression, and a fractured political landscape. While this may sound like a scene from the United States in 2024, this lecture returns to the beginnings of American democracy in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. As the economic barriers to voting dropped and Black men were increasingly denied the right to vote, White men transformed democracy into a scary and violent place. Here, drunkenness, brawls, political intimidation, eye gouging, gun shots, and knife fights often reigned supreme. Let’s return, if only for a moment, to the election of Andrew Jackson, the battle over votes in Kansas, and the important election campaigns of 1860. What we learn from these earlier moments can help us imagine a safer and fairer political process today.