Learning from Their Lived Experiences during the Cold War
Note: We are excited to announce that the Miami Institute for the Social Sciences is launching a year-long series of virtual forums on the Cold War, titled “Learning from Their Lived Experiences during the Cold War” and taking place throughout the 2024-2025 academic year. Because as we know, and while the Cold War officially took place from the 1940s to the 1990s, its intellectual, political, economic, and social legacies remain with us today.
This was a war that led many countries and individuals across the globe to associate themselves either with one superpower or the other: with the United States or the Soviet Union and their respective allies. Families saw their day-to-day lives and future plans disrupted and transformed, and either adapted to their new domestic realities or migrated from one set of allied countries to another, with many familial bonds breaking in the process, due to geographic distance and to the demonization of fellow family members with opposing allegiances. Those who allied themselves with the United States spoke of the importance of private property, private wealth accumulation, and the democratic vote. Others who allied themselves with the Soviet Union, communal ownership and community welfare were more critically important avenues for achieving their vision of the good society. Since the official end of the Cold War, many families have since reunited and the global community is less defined by the ideological polarities created by these two superpowers. And yet, we continue to live with some legacies of the war, as many of us across the world continue to define ourselves as allies of one of these two value systems. And our families continue to be strained by divisive political views shaped by this war.
This series of virtual forums at the Miami Institute will bring together roundtables of writers, activists, and observers from all around the world to discuss how various historical actors lived and experienced the Cold War. Throughout the span of this yearlong forum, we hope to better appreciate our shared humanities across these two Cold War rivalries and, through shared dialogue, better appreciate how we can come together to shape a future that is less haunted by the legacy of this war.
Please stay in the loop with the Miami Institute’s forthcoming Cold War forum by completing the “stay in touch” form at the bottom of our homepage.
Below, we include a preview of forthcoming virtual roundtables on key historical actors, whose lived experiences during the Cold War our community will discuss:
Robert “Bob” Moses (1935-2021)
Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016)
Ella Baker (1903-1986)
Alva Myrdal (1902-1986)
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004)
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977)
Eslanda Robeson (1895-1965)
Ana Echegoyen Montalvo (1901-1970)
Claudia Jones (1915-1964)
Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005)
Josina Abiathar Muthemba Machel (1945-1971)
Shirley Graham Du Bois (1896-1977)
Emma Tenayuca (1916-1999)
Una Marson (1905-1965)
Marie Vieux Chauvet (1916-1973)
Thomas Sankara (1949-1987)
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)
Oscar Romero (1917-1980)
Fidel Castro (1926-2016)
Malcolm X (1925-1965)
Che Guevara (1928-1967)
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
Ralph Bunche (1904-1971)
Vincent Harding (1931-2014)
