Who Kenyon has been all along

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 Our time in the archives reached a triumphant conclusion this week, culminating in a delightful presentation of the class's hard work. It was gratifying to see that all the time we and the other groups had put in over the last few weeks truly paid off; the presentations were both entertaining and thought-provoking. While listening to the other groups, I was surprised and impressed to glimpse the stories they had crafted in ways that had not even crossed my mind. In particular, I was very impressed with The Hill group’s presentation of the history of Kenyon fires and new construction. The group split their case in half, telling a story of destruction on one side, and on the other, a story of creation. Their visual way of telling a seemingly dull and somewhat painful story was incredibly effective, and I hope to see their case on display in the future.

We also concluded our reading of Yazdiha’s The Struggle for the People's King, with two focused chapters on the Muslim and Women’s rights movements. In Chapter 5, we learned how Muslim activists used memory to both separate and align themselves with other groups' identities, grappling with conflicting ideas of how the group perceives itself vs. how society perceives the group. In Chapter 6, we learned how the #metoo movement undertook a process of re-examining the past in order to shine a light on work that has already been and is being done by black women to stand up for victims of sexual assault. The ideas presented in these chapters led to an interesting class discussion centered around the word “reckoning,” and what this word means for us as we go forward and continue to discuss the memory of the civil rights movement in our lives. Yazdiha explains that such a reckoning must “acknowledge and understand the pasts that led to the present moment.” (Yazdiha 165) It is interesting to have these discussions in the era of cancel culture, where the question of whose memories are credible and to what extent these memories matter is fresh in everyone’s minds. What I took away from Yazdiha’s words, is that when these discussions come up, and they no doubt will, we should focus on the parts of King’s legacy that bring us together, not divide us. I believe that this idea is in alignment with King’s wishes. 

We will finally see the real fruits of our labor in the archives when the cases are put up on display for the bicentennial presentation. Although nothing that I saw in the cases was particularly controversial, I can only hope that our work is a catalyst for a sort of reckoning at Kenyon. As is expected at a place like Kenyon, which has been around for so long, I often hear complaints that the school “is not like it used to be.” Although I acknowledge that there have surely been changes, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, I hope that our cases will restore some of the pride that has always been so present in Kenyon students. Specifically, I hope that the areas of pride in the cases do not make viewers proud of who we were, but in Yazdiha’s words, “who we have been all along.” I hope the cases show the work that Kenyon has and will continue to do to persevere in even the toughest of times, continuing to be a cherished space of intellectual and creative pursuits. 


Works Cited:

Yazdiha, Hajar. 2023. The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

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