Regis University is offering the undergraduate online course “Stories from Wartime” to its students and the public, 9 News reported. The class will allow participants to speak to veterans and civilians affected by war.
This semester’s version will focus on Black military experiences.
“We want to really have a complex view of how we think about the ranges of stories from wartime experience,” said Regis associate professor Lauren Hirshberg, who teaches the class. “The central question is, what does it mean to serve a country with second-class citizenship?”
Inspiration for the course came from a story about Black Regis alum Walter Springs, who attended the school in 1942 and joined the military as an Army officer after graduating. He was murdered in a café by a fellow White officer in the same year.
“It’s an invaluable lesson about our past and particularly during WWII when the US was fighting Hitler and the Nazis,” said Dani Newsum, daughter of Col. Fitzroy “Buck” Newsum, one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. “What these men put up with while the United States was fighting Hitler and Aryan racist beliefs in Germany [while] they were fighting it at home.”
Newsum will be speaking to the class about her father.
