The Departments of History at the University of Akron and Kent State University welcome Prof. Todd Michney for the 2017 George W. Knepper Endowed Lecture on Monday, Oct. 2. Michney will present "Studying African Americans and Homeownership in the Long Twentieth Century: Lessons from Cleveland and Atlanta" at 5:30 p.m. in Simmons Hall Auditorium on the University of Akron campus. The lecture and following reception are free and open to the public.
Michney, a professor in the School of History and Sociology at Georgia Tech is most recently the author of Surrogate Suburbs: Black Upward Mobility and Neighborhood Change in Cleveland, 1900-1980. Prof. Michney’s talk will examine how structural racism constrained African Americans’ ability to achieve homeownership on the same scale as white Americans while contributing to a yawning racial wealth gap. He will also explore the creative strategies that aspiring black homeowners used to counteract the discriminatory barriers they encountered. Michney argues that while negatively impacted by racism—and most recently the 2008 foreclosure crisis in which African Americans experienced disproportionate setbacks—black aspirations to own homes remain strong and telling their stories is particularly urgent in today's climate of persistent structural inequality.
The George W. Knepper Lecture was created in 1994 to honor Dr. George W. Knepper, a specialist of Ohio history and UA distinguished professor emeritus of history. For more information, call the Department of History at 330-972-7006.