Expert on Civil Rights Movement in Germany to speak at Southern Miss | Schools

An international historian who has researched and written about the American civil rights movement’s global impact will speak at The University of Southern Mississippi during Black History Month.

Dr. Britta Waldschmidt-Nelson, deputy director of the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., will present “‘We Shall Overcome’: The Impact of the African American Freedom Struggle on Race Relations and Social Protest in Germany” Feb. 21 at 6 p.m. in Gonzales Auditorium. The auditorium is located on the first floor of the Liberal Arts Building on the Hattiesburg campus. Admission is free.

The U.S. civil right movement and its leaders, particularly Martin Luther King, Jr., are widely known. But the story beyond the American experience is less known. Waldschmidt-Nelson’s lecture will concentrate on one of these “neglected aspects”: the civil rights movement’s transatlantic impact on the former West and East Germanys. Beginning with a short discussion of the German Empire’s colonial heritage, she will then focus on the significance of World War II and the interconnectedness of the African American freedom struggle and the question of social justice in Germany in the 1960s, concluding with a look at the life of black people in Germany today.

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