Ric Sheffield — Whistling Dixie: Ohio’s History of Resistance to the Black Vote

Sunday Service — 10:30 a.m.

Leader — Brian Moore

Speaker — Ric Sheffield

Title — Whistling Dixie: Ohio’s History of Resistance to the Black Vote

Topic — FALSE PROMISES: The Struggle for Black Voting Rights in 1800’s Ohio
What it truly means to be a “citizen” is a question that African Americans have struggled with for generations. It often was much more than just personal dignity at stake. The right to vote was key to full citizenship for Black men in Ohio. Since the 1860s, they were willing to risk everything to exercise the elective franchise and refused to be denied at the polls. Even the passage of a voting rights amendment to the Constitution amounted to no more than a false promise.
False Promises is a collection of stories of courage and resolve as Black men tried to exercise their rights as citizens in late-1800s Ohio, a state thought to be less antagonistic to racial equality in the Reconstruction era. These men, however, met resistance in nearly every corner of the state. It was particularly virulent in the rural counties in southern Ohio. Over decades, the state slowly began to dismantle barriers to the Black vote. Much of the change was the consequence of brave African Americans willing to risk it all to challenge the denial of the right to vote. These stories reveal how contemporary voter-suppression tactics have roots in Ohio’s history of resistance to universal suffrage and challenge the perception that voting rights injustices
were solely confined to the South.

Bio — Ric S. Sheffield is Professor Emeritus of Legal Studies and Sociology at Kenyon College, where he directed the Law & Society Program and the John Adams Summer Legal Scholars Program.

Before joining Kenyon, he served for ten years as an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Ohio. He began his legal career as a civil rights attorney, handling primarily sex and race discrimination cases, and later served as chief attorney for the state’s consumer protection division.

His research and writing have explored the intersection of law with race, gender, and ethnicity, with particular attention to the African American experience in rural Ohio. He has also been selected as a speaker with the Ohio Humanities Council’s speakers bureau, lecturing widely on issues of race, law, and rural diversity.

In addition to publishing articles, reviews, and book chapters on legal history and African American social and legal history, he is the author of We Got By: A Black Family’s Journey in the Heartland and False Promises: The Struggle for Black Voting Rights in 1800s Ohio.

A graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where he studied sociology and law, Professor Sheffield also served in a number of leadership roles at Kenyon, including department chair and associate provost.

Join us downstairs after service for coffee and conversation.

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