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The Carnegie Lecture Series Returns
in partnership with the united way

Toward a Moment of Reckoning: Understanding the History of  Local and National Racial Violence​

Friday, September 11, 2020
​5:30 pm

Many residents of San Luis Obispo County insist that this region is relatively free of racial conflict today. Some may even believe that there have been few instances of racial violence and overt hostility experienced by African Americans or other people of color. The historical record suggests otherwise: Structural racism and the racial tensions that accompany it affect our community just as they affect our nation. This is what makes racism institutional - it is present in all of the institutions that make up our society. 
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Join Dr. Leola Dublin Macmillan as she provides her own perspective as both a Black woman  and as a scholar of race in America. Dr. Macmillan is the Resource Development Specialist at the United Way of San Luis Obispo County, and leads their Equity, Diversity and Inclusion efforts. She has served on the steering committee of RACE Matters, and is a member of the SLO Police Department’s Police and Community Together (PACT) advisory group. She has more than 30 years’ experience as both an educator an activist. 

Dr. Macmillan will be joined by Geof Land, a history teacher at Paso Robles High School and author of a recent Tribune article about the history of racial violence in SLO County. They will situate our current national racial climate, and the protests and counter-protests that continue to take place in the appropriate historical context. They will trace the history of racial violence in America, from its origins in the Transatlantic slave trade, to its existence in the era of early statehood, through the secessionist sentiment during the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, Chinese exclusion, Japanese internment, and the civil rights era. Participants will also discuss “teachable moments” from more contemporary, local incidents such as racist graffiti, a cross-burning in Arroyo Grande, and racial intolerance at Cal Poly.

This lecture will be taking place via Zoom.  You will need a computer, tablet, or phone capable of connecting to Zoom.  To register, please enter your email address in the field below.  The link will be sent out at 5:00 pm.

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Meet the Speakers

Dr. Leola Dublin Macmillan is the new Resource Development Specialist for the United Way of San Luis Obispo County. She is a critical cultural scholar, essayist and social justice activist. She holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Washington State University. Her scholarly production includes work on adolescent identity development in marginalized girls, and the representation of women and girls in American visual culture.

Dr. Macmillan has served on the board of Just Communities Central Coast, is on the steering committee of RACE Matters SLO County and is a member of the SLO Police Department’s Police and Community Together (PACT) community group. She has more than 30 years’ experience as both an educator and an activist. She has taught in a broad range of disciplines - both inside and outside of higher education - from environmental science to adult literacy. Dr. Macmillan has also worked as a consultant, providing diversity training, grant writing, strategic planning, facilitation, and editorial services for her clients. In 2019, Rep. Salud Carbajal recognized Dr. Macmillan as Congressional Woman of the Year.

Geoffrey Land has been teaching Social Studies at Paso Robles High School since 1998. He holds degrees from UC Santa Barbara (B.A.) and UC San Diego (Master’s in Pacific International Affairs). He has lived and studied in Spain and Costa Rica.  He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Caribbean (Grenada, 1984-86) and with  San Diego’s Office of Binational Affairs, which coordinated the city’s relations with Mexico.  Before becoming a teacher, he worked with nonprofit groups Border Ecology Project and the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo (ECOSLO).  While at ECOSLO, Land spearheaded local efforts to protect the coast from offshore oil and gas development and the county’s north coast from the proposed Hearst hotel and golf development at San Simeon Point.  He also oversaw an environmental health project to educate local farmworkers from the environment and health risks associated with pesticides.  

At PRHS, Land has led hundreds of students on field studies and backpacking trips, helping establish the Field Studies Collaborative.  In 2005 he created and still teaches one of California’s only Modern World History classes conducted entirely in Spanish for bilingual students.  In 2010, he was part of an effort to defend the teaching of Kaffir Boy at SLO High School and penned a Tribune viewpoint on the subject (“Don’t Censor Kaffir Boy Because it Discomforts Some”).  In 2017, Land worked with students who had organized a school walkout to honor immigrants, encouraging them to put their reasons for the protest into a viewpoint for the local paper (“Paso High Protest aimed to support immigrants..”)   In 2018, Land helped organize a community forum in which nine undocumented students at PRHS shared their stories, encouraging them to write a viewpoint for the Tribune explaining why they decided to speak out. (“These Paso Seniors are bound for college, if they’re allowed to stay in the U.S.”)  His viewpoint on racial conflict and local news coverage appeared in the SLO Tribune in August.