The Klement Lecture brings to campus distinguished scholars in American history. Established in 1992 to honor Prof. Frank L. Klement, the lecture series was devoted originally to the history of the U.S. Civil War, but it now includes all fields of American history. Prof. Klement received his Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin in 1946 and joined the history department at Marquette University in 1948. He served at Marquette for twenty-seven years before his retirement at the rank of professor emeritus, and he died in 1994 at the age of 86. Prof. Klement’s scholarship focused on the Civil War era, focusing on northern dissent. He is best remembered for his monographs The Copperheads in the Middle West (1960) and The Limits of Dissent: Clement L. Vallandigham and the Civil War (1970). Earlier lectures in the Klement series can be ordered from Marquette University Press, and Kent State University Press published several lectures in the 2008 volume More than a Contest Between Armies: Essays on the Civil War Era, edited by Kristen Foster and James Marten.

 

28^th Annual Prof. Frank L. Klement Lecture

"Body & Spirit: Preachers, Radicals, and the Politics of the Latinx Civil Movement"

The 28^th lecture in this distinguished series will be held on Wednesday, October 11, 2023 at 5:00pm in the Raynor Library Conference Center.

In the late 1960s, Chicago was a city reeling from its urban renewal binge, riots at the Democratic National Convention, the assassinations of several radical activists, and a progressive religious community on the verge of being dismantled. Frustrated by the overwhelming power of Chicago’s political machine, the Puerto Rican radical group known as the Young Lords took action and occupied two religious institutions in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood in the summer of 1969: McCormick Seminary and the Armitage Methodist Church. What started out as a small occupation movement, that few believed could make any difference, not only temporarily halted the urban renewal plans in place for Lincoln Park, they kicked off a national movement of Latina/o radicals occupying churches and disrupting church services as a way to protest urban renewal, police brutality, and anti-Black and anti-Latino racism. This lecture examines these occupations, the contested relationships between preachers and radicals, and what these movements can teach us about the politics of the Latinx Civil Rights Movement.

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Dr. Felipe Hinojosa

Professor | History Department
John and Nancy Jackson Endowed Chair in Latin America
Baylor University

 

Born and raised in Brownsville, Texas, Felipe Hinojosa received his Ph.D. from the University of Houston in 2009. His research areas include Chicana/o and Latina/o Studies, American Religion, Race and Ethnicity, and Social Movements. Prof. Hinojosa serves on the Advisory Board for the interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, and online moderated forum Latinx Talk. His work has appeared in Zócalo Public Square, Western Historical Quarterly, American Catholic Studies, Mennonite Quarterly Review, and in edited collections on Latina/o Studies. Dr. Hinojosa’s first book, Latino Mennonites: Civil Rights, Faith, and Evangelical Culture (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014) was awarded the 2015 Américo Paredes Book Award for the best book in Mexican American and Latina/o Studies by the Center for Mexican American Studies at South Texas College. His new book, Apostles of Change: Latino Radical Politics, Church Occupations, and the Fight to Save the Barrio (University of Texas Press, 2021) is set in four major cities (Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston) where in 1969 and 1970 Latino radical activists clashed with religious leaders as they occupied churches to protest urban renewal, poverty, police brutality, and racism in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Free and open to the public

Sponsored by the Marquette University Department of History
For more information, call 414.288.7217

 

Previous Klement Lectures