A Peoples' Landscape: Racism and Resistance at UW

Madison Heslop and Julian Barr, History

The ongoing crises of contemporary public life in the United States demand responses from multidisciplinary cohorts of scholars and activists who can illuminate context and provide avenues for action. The People’s History group at the University of Washington, a graduate student collective affiliated with Divest and Demilitarize UW, took on a project in summer 2020 at the request of members of the UW Black Student Union to map the histories of racism and resistance that make up the university’s Seattle campus. Our interactive digital map, “A Peoples’ Landscape: Racism and Resistance at UW,” provides students with a historical and spatial guide that confronts the colonial and racist legacies that produced our campus and foregrounds the resistance and resilience of Indigenous, Black, Queer and Latinx students whose organizing efforts made possible important campus resources. This is a group presentation.