Take Nothing for Granted: Reflections on the Freedom Project

James Marten is Chair of the history department and Director of the Freedom Project, a year-long commemoration of the Sesquicentennial of the Civil War that explored the many meanings and histories of emancipation and freedom in the United States and beyond.

As the 2012-2013 academic year comes to a close, so, too, does the Freedom Project, Marquette University’s com- memoration of the 150^th Anniversary of the Civil War.  Many colleagues at Marquette contributed to a very suc- cessful year, including William Welburn in the Office for Diversity and Inclusion in the Office of the Provost, who helped fund the initiative; the faculty and staffs of the Performing Arts Department and the Haggerty Museum of Art who mounted an entire theatrical season and three separate exhibits as part of the project; Dean Janice Welburn, Eric Kowalik, and many others at the Raynor Memorial Libraries, which hosted and maintained our website and created several exhibitions; members in the Office of Marketing and Communication, who designed our logo and publicity materials; and the Law School, English Department, and Women’s and Gender Studies Program, which, respectively, sponsored a poetry reading by A. Vann Jordan, a lecture by Columbia University historian Eric Foner, and a talk by Jeanne Theoharis, biographer of the civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.  In the History Department, Kristen Foster organized the Mellon Grant-funded symposia on antebellum emancipation in the fall and on domestic surveillance in the twentieth century in the spring, and Andrew Kahrl administered our monthly brown bag discussion of notions of freedom in the U. S. and beyond (speakers included Laura Matthew, Dan Meissner, Alison Efford, Sarah Bond, Julius Ruff, and Chima Korieh).