In November, former Macalester history professor Mahmoud El-Kati sat in the Alexander G. Hill Ballroom\u2019s front row, surrounded by family and many former students, as the Mac community celebrated his legacy at the eighth annual El-Kati Distinguished Lectureship in American Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn African culture, the griot is the wise elder who shares the history, traditions, and aspirations of the clan and community,\u201d Melvin Collins \u201975 said at the event. \u201cMahmoud has been that for Macalester, and for the Twin Cities community, for over fifty years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2021, more than three hundred donors raised $90,000 during a twelve-day campaign to endow the lectureship, which brings notable Black scholars to St. Paul every other year to share their knowledge with Macalester and the local community. The lectureship was established by Stanley M. Berry \u201975, Bertram M. Days \u201974, and Ava B. Days to honor El-Kati\u2019s career\u2014including at Macalester from 1970 to 2003\u2014as a lecturer, writer, and commentator on the African American experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The program in November featured Dr. Crystal Marie Moten, a former Macalester history professor who is curator of African American history at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History\u2019s Division of Work and Industry. Her research focuses on Black women\u2019s struggles for economic justice in the twentieth-century urban North. Moten\u2019s lecture lifted up the work and legacies of Bernice Copeland Lindsay and Nana Reed Baker, changemakers who fostered opportunities for Black women and girls in 1940s Milwaukee, \u201cin hope that we might learn from their examples of strength, courage, resilience\u2014their determined decisions to create during crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeing invited to give the El-Kati lecture holds tremendous meaning for me, especially having taught African American history in the same department where Elder El-Kati taught, literally traversing the path he cleared,\u201d Moten told the audience. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n