SUNY Geneseo explores Racist Policy and Resistance in Rochester

Posted on May 20, 2021

This talk examined how federal and local policies like redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and urban renewal segregated Rochester, built wealth for its white citizens and disenfranchised people of color. It explores how local civil rights leaders like Howard Coles, Alice Young and many others fought back. Finally, it connects these past policies to the disparity and inequality we see in Rochester today and invites us to learn from and apply the activism of Rochester’s past to its present.

Speaker Bio

Shane Wiegand is a fourth grade teacher in the Rush-Henrietta School District and the Co lead of the Antiracist Curriculum Project at the PathStone Foundation. He has researched, compiled, and taught Rochester’s history of structural racism and resistance in his classroom for the past eight years. Starting with several fourth grade teachers in his school district, Shane has now trained over 900 hundred teachers in anti-racist curriculum across multiple school districts. Shane is also a board member of Connected Communities, The Police Accountability Board Alliance, and City Roots Community Land Trust. He is an adjunct faculty instructor in the URMC Department of Neurology. He and his wife live in the Beechwood neighborhood of Rochester. Shane graduated from SUNY Geneseo in 2011 with a degree in Childhood and Special Education and completed his masters in childhood multicultural education from Geneseo.

This talk was part of the Geneseo Honors Black History Month series.

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