Published on March 27, 2025
Professor David Roediger will discuss his new memoir, An Ordinary White: My Anti-Racist Education, on March 31 from 11:00 a.m. to noon in the Crisp Room at the John A. Logan College Conference Center.
According to the University of Kansas History Department website, David Roediger is the Foundation Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas, where he teaches and writes on race and class in the United States. He was educated through college at public schools in Illinois and completed doctoral work at Northwestern University. His recent books include Class, Race and Marxism, Seizing Freedom, and (with Elizabeth Esch) The Production of Difference. His older writings on race, immigration, and working-class history include The Wages of Whiteness and Working toward Whiteness.
In his memoir, Roediger describes how his education in both racism and anti-racism has deep roots in Illinois, literally from the southern tip to the northern border. Raised in the town of Columbia just outside of St. Louis, he spent summers with family in Cairo at a time when civil rights activity rocked the city. After his undergraduate years at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Roediger completed his graduate studies at Northwestern University in Chicago.
For more information, contact John A. Logan College Professor of History Dr. David Cochran at 985-2828, ext. 8689 or David.Cochran@jalc.edu