Dr. Dana Elizabeth Weiner

Associate Professor and Undergraduate Officer, History Department, Wilfrid Laurier University

US Historian, expert on African American history, activism, debates over rights, citizenship in the US to 1880.

Media

Interview regarding police brutality, protests, and US activist histories on "Africa 54"

Voice of America International, June 8, 2020Radio/Podcast

URL: https://www.voanews.com/episode/cities-begin-reimagining-policing-4300676

Interview begins at 9:25.

The unofficial celebration of Juneteenth in Canada

"Bogus science in racist flyers a 'classic' white supremacist tactic, profs say."

Race and Rights: Fighting Slavery and Prejudice in the Old Northwest, 1830–1870
by Dana Elizabeth Weiner
Northern Illinois University Press
January 15, 2013
9780875807133

In the Old Northwest from 1830 to 1870, a bold set of activists battled slavery and racial prejudice. This book is about their expansive efforts to eradicate southern slavery and its local influence in the contentious milieu of four new states carved out of the Northwest Territory: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. While the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery in the region in 1787, in reality both it and racism continued to exert strong influence in the Old Northwest, as seen in the race-based limitations of civil liberties there. Indeed, these states comprised the central battleground over race and rights in antebellum America, in a time when race's social meaning was deeply infused into all aspects of Americans' lives, and when people struggled to establish political consensus.

Antislavery and anti-prejudice activists from a range of institutional bases crossed racial lines as they battled to expand African American rights in this region. Whether they were antislavery lecturers, journalists, or African American leaders of the Black Convention Movement, women or men, they formed associations, wrote publicly to denounce their local racial climate, and gave controversial lectures. In the process, they discovered that they had to fight for their own right to advocate for others. This bracing new history by Dana Elizabeth Weiner is thus not only a history of activism, but also a history of how Old Northwest reformers understood the law and shaped new conceptions of justice and civil liberties. The newest addition to the Mellon-sponsored Early American Places Series, Race and Rights will be a much-welcomed contribution to the study of race and social activism in nineteenth-century America.

Biography

Dr. Dana Elizabeth Weiner's research explores race, activism, grassroots politics, and the historical connections among race, rights and citizenship. Weiner consults about Americans' long history of debates over rights and inclusion. Weiner has published about antislavery and antiracist activism in the present day Midwest. She examines limited rights on the basis of race in early 19th century California and the California "Black Laws." Weiner focuses on identity, race, and property among California African Americans from 1821-1870. She has written about citizenship claims and rights activism, and analyzed and re-evaluated 19th century debates between the state and California African Americans over citizenship’s meanings.

Additional Titles and Affiliations

Faculty Associate, Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples at York University

Member of the Graduate Faculty, WLU

Expertise

  • US Citizenship, pre-1900
  • US History
  • US Race
  • US Slavery
  • US Women's History
  • United States History
  • Slavery in the US
  • Rights in the US
  • Race in the United States
  • History of California
  • Gender History
  • Early US History
  • Antislavery history
  • African American History
  • Activism in the US
  • 19th Century US History
  • Abolition

Education/Éducation

  • University of California, San Diego
    History (Honors) and Women's Studies
    BA

    Magna Cum Laude


  • Northwestern University
    History (United States)
    MA
  • Northwestern University
    History (United States)
    PhD

    Certificate in Gender Studies