Today (6/11) at noon, the Central Arkansas Library System presents the annual Rabbi Ira E. Sanders Lecture.  It featured Richard T. Hughes, “Understanding White Supremacy: Why We Must Hear Black Voices.”

According to Dr. Hughes, six myths lie at the heart of the American experience. Taken as aspirational, four of those myths remind us of our noblest ideals, challenging us to realize our nation’s promise while galvanizing the sense of hope and unity we need to reach our goals. Misused, these myths allow for illusions of innocence that fly in the face of the primal American myth that stands at the heart of all the others—the myth of white supremacy.

Richard T. Hughes is a professor emeritus at both Pepperdine University and Messiah College. He is the author or coauthor or editor of more than a dozen books including Illusions of Innocence: Protestant Primitivism in America, 1630-1875 and Christian America and the Kingdom of God.

About the Rabbi Ira E. Sanders Lecture: The Sanders Lecture was established in 2000 to commemorate Rabbi Sanders’s forty years of service on the Boards of Trustees of Little Rock Public Library and CALS. The lecture includes topics that support Rabbi Sander’s commitment to intellectual freedom.

This year’s lecture is presented in partnership by the UA Little Rock’s Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity and will take place in the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.

The program is free but a reservation is required. Please reserve your seat at ualr.edu/race-ethnicity/hughesrsvp/.

The Rabbi Ira E. Sanders Lecture is co-sponsored by the UA Little Rock Anderson Institute on Race and Ethnicity.