The Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS) recently held a virtual workshop on anti-racism, titled “A Way Forward.” CAAS is one of the main organizations in the field of classics, along with the American Philological Association (APA), which in 2013 rebranded as the Society for Classical Studies (SCS).
One need not dig too deep to find the roots of the SCS, a professional organization for teachers and lay supporters of the study of Greece and Rome. Basel Lanneau Gildersleeve, a scholar of Greek and Latin and veteran of the Confederate States Army, founded the APA in 1869. The field would seem to have come a long way since then, and even since it disinvited the Black classicist William Sanders Scarborough from its segregated conference in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1909.
This January 2021, the SCS welcomed its first African American president, Shelley P. Haley, Edward North Chair of Classics and Professor of Africana Studies at Hamilton College. The CAAS workshop was consistent with these major changes in the academic field.
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