David Goldfield, Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History, recently participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the U.S. Embassy to Belgium and the U.S. Mission to the European Union as part of a celebration of Black History Month.
Goldfield was joined by Maboula Soumahoro, associate professor of English at the University of Tours, and Michael Privot, director of the European Network Against Racism.
During this trip, Goldfield was interviewed by Radio X, Belgium’s first and only English-speaking radio station that targets the expatriate and international business community. He also discussed upcoming 2014 elections with students at Sint-Pieterscollege High School in Leuven, Belgium, on a visit sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Brussels. The institution is a Flemish-Catholic high school that educates many of Belgium's Flemish-speaking leaders. The topic of the Civil Rights movement was new to most students, and teachers were holding special lessons on the Emmett Till case, as well as the literary classic "To Kill a Mockingbird." He also gave a briefing to U.S. Embassy personnel on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and racial progress during the past 50 years and discussed the 2014 U.S. elections at the Free University of Brussels.
A faculty member in the Department of History, Goldfield has published 16 books on various aspects of Southern and American history, including "Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers," "Black, White and Southern," and "Still Fighting the Civil War." His most recent book was the best-selling "America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation." Two of his books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Goldfield has served as an expert witness in voting rights cases and consulted for history museums, and he works as an academic specialist for the U.S. State Department, leading seminars and workshops abroad on various aspects of American political culture and providing historical context for contemporary elections.