The African Studies Association (ASA) will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its first annual meeting in historic Chicago, IL. As part of the larger program, the event will feature scholars, artists, and community activists from the Chicago area who will facilitate panels, workshops, and discussions tailored especially to educators.

A hundred years ago, in communities across the U.S., white residents forced thousands of black families to flee their homes. Even a century later, these towns remain almost entirely white. Banished tells the story of three of these communities and their black descendants, who return to learn their shocking histories. This event presents a screening of the film, followed by a conversation with director Marco Williams. Williams, a member of the faculty at NYU, is a documentary and fiction film director. His films have been broadcast on cable and public television, including Showtime and Frontline, and have been screened at film festivals throughout the world.

This event will provide an examination of two Facing History resources that explore the critical role that race has played in U.S. history as it relates to immigration policy: Race and Membership in American History: The Eugenics Movement and Becoming American: The Chinese Experience.

Divided We Fall is the first feature-length independent documentary about hate violence in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Filmmaker Valarie Kaur documented stories in the Sikh, Muslim, and Arab American communities. Over the next five years, Kaur's journey unfolded into a larger exploration of "who counts as American." In 2005, Sharat Raju and his film crew joined Valarie as she retraced her steps across the country, revisiting her original interviewees and other scholars, lawyers, and legislators about race, religion, and security in post-9/11 America. The screening is free and open to the public. It will include a showing of the film and comments by Dr. Jaideep Singh, co-founder of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Assistant Professor in Department of Ethnic Studies, CSUEB, and Ranjit Singh Sabharwal Chair in Sikh and Punjabi Studies and by Neha Singh, Western Region Director of the Sikh Coalition, Fremont. A question-answer period with panelists will end the program

This workshop will explore the Facing History and Ourselves resource book, Choices in Little Rock—a collection of teaching suggestions, activities, and primary sources that focus on the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. These efforts led to a crisis that historian Taylor Branch once described as "the most severe test of the Constitution since the Civil War." These resources explore a range of civic choices—the decisions people make as citizens in a democracy. Those decisions, both then and now, reveal that democracy is not a product but a work in progress, a work that is shaped in every generation by the choices that people make about themselves and others. In this workshop, participants will consider ways to engage students in the issues raised by this history and its civic implications for their lives today. Choices in Little Rock can be used not only to teach history but also to deepen and enrich a study of civics, government, and literature. Participants will receive the Choices in Little Rock teaching guide, which contains suggestions for lesson plans, reproducible readings, and copies of documents for students to analyze. Attending this workshop will also make teachers part of the Facing History and Ourselves Educator Network. This entitles them to free borrowing from FH's extensive Lending Library, full access to all of FH's Educator Resources, including lessons, teaching strategies, online modules, discussion forums, and more, as well as ongoing personalized curricular support from a Facing History staff member.