CSS Director Earl Lewis was interviewed for the Fall 2020 issue of LSA Magazine, LSA On Point, regarding protests, white power, and our collective humanity during COVID-19. Below are excerpts from his interview with Susan Hutton.


“This may be our moment for a truth-and-reconciliation project for the United States. We have never been able to do that, and I think, in fact, that some people don't want the truth. The notion of reconciliation will require us to deal not only with the sin of slavery, but with the sin of confiscating native lands and all that entails. Perhaps we can make sure that this moment is not lost so we won’t be having this conversation again in 5 or 10 years about another incident because we didn't have the strength and willpower to do what’s necessary now.


Most people who believe in social movements are optimists. If you don’t believe that a place can be better, you tear it up. But if you believe that we have not yet realized the best part of ourselves, you may have some hope for trying to figure out how to build it up.In some ways, I would argue that the Black Lives Matters movement has been an optimistic movement from the beginning because these were young people who were trying to figure out how to build something rather than to tear it apart. And if we are smart, we will treasure and nurture that impulse rather than demonizing it. And I can only hope we're smart enough.”


Read the entire interview here.