$\u201cFrom Selma to Stonewall\u201d$

This lecture series surveys the tensions and solidarity points between the struggles for African American Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ Rights.
About this Event

T he Institute for Common Power Foundational Course

June 9, 16, 23, 2025 (One ticket for all three lectures)

4 pm PST / 7 pm EST

“From Selma to Stonewall”; Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ Rights, An Uneasy Alliance
Dr. Meredith Bagley

Description: This lecture series surveys the tensions and solidarity points between the struggles for African American Civil Rights and LGBTQ+ Rights. We will examine queer-identified figures within the Civil Rights movement - after laying a working foundation for LGBTQ+ terminology - before moving forward to the ways the two movements overlap, inform, and occasionally exist in tension. Through a largely, but not exclusively, chronological approach, this four-part series will examine Black Lesbian Feminism, the Stonewall Riots, Marriage Equality, and the current crisis over gender-affirming health care. Areas of exploration will include, but are not limited to, the following: foundational knowledge of LGBTQ+ terminology, gender identity and sexual orientation as social constructions, intersectionality of race and queerness (or “quareness”), white erasure of Black queer activism, and white/heteronormative politics in contemporary activism.

D r. Meredith Bagley is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Alabama. She has received campus-wide teaching awards and was a driving force behind the university’s reluctant public recognition of its first African American student, Autherine Lucy, in 1956. Dr. Bagley is a national leader on LQBTQ+ issues and has worked extensively in the political arena. She earned her BA from Harvard University, her MA from the University of Washington, and her PhD from the University of Texas.