As part of Black History Month and our overall migrant/refugee outreach, the Embassy brought African-American and African expert Françoise Hamlin to Portugal from February 13-14, to speak on the rethinking the Civil Rights Movement. In particular, the importance of history; how the mass movement for civil rights is defined in the U.S. and how the past informs the present.
“The past is never dead, it is not even past”, quoting U.S. author William Faulkner, Professor Hamlin lectured that most of the issues of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s are still relevant today as they were then. Civil rights legislation has changed the law but not the spirit of the law. Today, the black community is still portrayed as crime-ridden while the media does not reflect the excesses of the police force. Many still feel marginalized. Professor Hamlin taught at the Lumiar High School and lectured at the University of Lisbon (ISCSP) and the Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE).
Professor Hamlin also had a working lunch with migration and equality stakeholders, including the Migration High Commissioner – Pedro Calado, toured the National Migration Center (CNAIM) – one stop shop, and visit two multicultural integration projects at Quintas do Mocho and Fonte, including the Ibisco Theater.
Françoise N. Hamlin (Ph.D. Yale University, 2004) is an Associate Professor in History and Africana Studies, at Brown University. Professor Hamlin teaches undergraduate and graduate courses primarily in twentieth century U.S. history, African American history, southern history, cultural studies and Africana Studies. Prior to joining the faculty at Brown, Professor Hamlin was a DuBois-Mandela-Rodney fellow at the University of Michigan (2004-2005), and an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (2005-2007). Since then she has been a Charles Warren Center Fellow at Harvard University (2007-2008), and a Woodrow Wilson-Mellon Fellow (2010-2011).
