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In the fall of 2017, Chancellor Rebecca Blank charged a study group — made up of UW faculty, alumni, and students — to look into the histories of UW-affiliated student groups that, in the early 1920s, operated under the Ku Klux Klan name. When the study group released their comprehensive report in April 2018, one of their recommendations was to fund a “project to recover the voices of campus community members, in the era of the Klan and since, who struggled and endured in a climate of hostility and who sought to change it.” This recommendation became the UW–Madison Public History Project . Last September, Kacie Lucchini Butcher was hired to direct the project, and the work began. Lucchini Butcher and her team are sifting through university and city archives, as well as conducting oral histories with UW alumni and former faculty members, with the goal of presenting their work as an exhibit and lecture series in the fall of 2021. If you’d like more information or are interested in sharing your own stories, contact publichistoryproject@wisc.edu.

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