Call for Papers

NASA in the "Long" Civil Rights Movement Symposium – University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) – March 16-17, 2017

The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center History Office and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH) History Department invite academics, graduate students, and independent scholars to submit proposals for papers to be presented at a two-day symposium, March 16-17, 2017, at the University of Alabama Huntsville. The purpose of the symposium is to address the role/relationship of NASA to the ‘Long’ Civil Rights Movement, particularly, but not limited to, the Deep South (Huntsville, Florida, Houston, Mississippi, and New Orleans). The conceptual framework for the symposium is provided by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall’s 2005 essay in the Journal of American History, "The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past," which called upon historians to produce new "modes of writing and speaking that emphasize individual agency…while also dramatizing the hidden history of politics and institutions." Along these lines, the conference welcomes papers addressing the Civil Rights experience across NASA that not only explore the experience of African Americans, but also of women, immigrants, and other politically/legally marginalized groups. The intention is to publish a subset of the papers as an anthology.

Submission Procedures:

If you wish to present a paper, please send an abstract of no more than 400 words and a short biography or curriculum vita, including affiliation by July 31, 2016 to Brian Odom at brian.c.odom@nasa.gov or Dr. Stephen Waring at warings@uah.edu

Decisions about acceptance will be made by September 1, 2016.

For more information see https://networks.h-net.org/node/73374/announcements/99690/nasa-long-civil-rights-movement

or contact Brian Odom at brian.c.odom@nasa.gov