Tony Platt in conversation with Milton Reynolds at the San Francisco Public Library
November 16, 2021 | 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Tony Platt, author, academic, and activist and Milton Reynolds, educator, author, and activist discuss California’s sorrowful legacies of genocide, land grabs, and grave-robbing.
Grave Matters is the history of the treatment of Native remains in California and the story of the complicated relationship between researcher and researched. Tony Platt begins his journey with his son’s funeral at Big Lagoon, a seaside village in pastoral Humboldt County in Northern California, once O-pyúweg, a bustling center for the Yurok and the site of a plundered Native cemetery. Platt travels the globe in search of the answer to the question: How do we reconcile a place of extraordinary beauty with its horrific past?
This is a hybrid event. You can join live in-person or via Zoom (registration required). The in-person address is the Main Library (Saroyan Gallery, 6th floor), San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102.
Register HereAbout the Speaker
Tony Platt
Tony Platt is the author of thirteen books and 150 essays and articles on race, inequality, and social justice in American history, among them Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States; Bloodlines: Recovering Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, from Patton’s Trophy to Public Memorial; and The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency. His work has been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, and Japanese. In addition to scholarly books and publications, Platt has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Truthdig, History News Network, Z Magazine, Nation, Salon, Monthly Review, and the Guardian, and his commentaries have aired on National Public Radio.
Now a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Law and Society, Platt taught at the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, and California State University where he received awards for teaching and scholarship. He blogs on history and memory at http://GoodToGo.typepad.com. He lives in Berkeley and Big Lagoon, California. Photo credit: Janis Lwein.
