Listen "Shaping Collective Memory: Hajar Yazdiha"
Episode Synopsis
Thursday, November 2nd, 2023 Hajar Yazdiha is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences and the author of The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. We discuss the role of collective memory in the myth-making of American exceptionalism. Collective memory is the way that we remember history and that becomes central to our idea of who we are as a people. It's a process of storytelling and the most central stories to who we are as a people. The civil rights movement has become one of the central collective memories in America's story of both who it is and who it wants to be. However, careful examination of the record reveals that the civil rights movement was a political project that was meant to actually dismantle multicultural democracy. Further, as the collective memory of Dr. King became sanitized and whitewashed, his legacy carried a lot of moral legitimacy, and his moral symbolic authority became ripe for manipulation. Follow Hajar on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HajYazdiha Follow Mila on Twitter: https://twitter.com/milaatmos Follow Future Hindsight on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurehindsightpod/ Love Future Hindsight? Take our Listener Survey! http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=6tI0Zi1e78vq&ver=standard Take the Democracy Group's Listener Survey! https://www.democracygroup.org/survey Want to support the show and get it early? https://patreon.com/futurehindsight Check out the Future Hindsight website! www.futurehindsight.com Read the transcript here: https://www.futurehindsight.com/episodes/shaping-collective-memory-hajar-yazdiha Credits: Host: Mila Atmos Guests: Hajar Yazdiha Executive Producer: Mila Atmos Producer: Zack Travis
More episodes of the podcast Future Hindsight
AI for the Public Interest: Bruce Schneier
30/10/2025
How Underdogs Build Power: Stephanie Luce
23/10/2025
The Pathway to Citizenship: Todd Schulte
16/10/2025
Small Dollars, Big Strategy: Brian Derrick
09/10/2025
Turning Hope Into Action: Michael Ansara
18/09/2025
From Protest to Power: Jonathan Pulphus
11/09/2025
We Are Changemakers: Sharon McMahon
04/09/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.