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FEATURED BOOK
Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power
Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, by Jeff Cowie, radically shifts our understanding of what freedom means in America. This book tells a place-based history of the United States through Barbour County, Alabama, showing that when white Americans fought in the name of “freedom,” they meant freedom from federal power in order to protect white supremacy. From the dispossession of Indigenous lands, chattel slavery, and Reconstruction to Jim Crow, the New Deal, and the civil rights movement, Cowie shows how white people have weaponized “freedom” to advance and defend white supremacy. Cowie shows that white people in the United States have long understood freedom as a right exclusive to white people, arguing that “white freedom” entails the right to dominate others, especially nonwhites, without federal interference. Freedom’s Dominion traces the historical roots of the same rhetoric we see today, where freedom is frequently invoked to mean freedom from federal intervention and the preservation of white supremacy.
MODERATOR
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Dr. Carmen Rojas is the president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Under her leadership, which started in 2020, MCF launched the prestigious Freedom Scholar award and has granted more than $323 million in funding to dozens of organizations doing the hard work of shifting power to those people who have long been excluded from having it. Prior to MCF, Dr. Rojas was the cofounder and CEO of the Workers Lab, an innovation lab that partners with workers to develop new ideas that help them succeed and flourish.
PANELISTS
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Nikole Hannah-Jones is a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter covering racial injustice for The New York Times Magazine and creator of the landmark The 1619 Project, now a Hulu original docuseries. Originally a special project of The New York Times Magazine, The 1619 Project book debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list. Nikole also cowrote a children's book, called Born on the Water, which also debuted at #1 on The New York Times bestseller list. The 1619 Project docuseries won the Emmy for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series. Nikole is a believer in Black institutions and is the cofounder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting at Morehouse College; founder of the 1619 Freedom School in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa; and founder of the Center for Journalism & Democracy at Howard University, where she is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism.
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Jefferson Cowie's work in social and political history focuses on how class, race, and labor shape American politics and culture. His latest book, Freedom's Dominion, won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2023. Based on one county’s history, Freedom’s Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power tells the dramatic tale of generations of local fights against the federal government that prop up a particular version of American freedom: the freedom to oppress others. Advance praise calls it "magisterial," written with "eloquence and with brilliance," and Cowie's "most extraordinary book yet."
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