These easy-to-view videos (6-15 minutes each) address questions of how we got to the present moment in race relations. They guide us to get the facts straight in understanding the roots of our white supremacist society. But there’s no guilt implied — we are not personally responsible for things that happened in the past. However, as Americans, we are responsible for the consequences, the outcomes, and the baggage that has come from our history.

According to Professor Stewart, the most important ingredient in making a shift in contemporary race relations is for white people to take a more courageous stance regarding the systemic racism that is baked into all our institutions. When white people show up on the scene — any scene, from school to church, store or street — and are accurately informed about the realities of white supremacy, change happens. Stewart cites two major occasions in our history when white people showed up in big numbers — the Abolitionist movement of the mid-19th century and the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 1960s. When white people stood up, rose to the occasion, and stayed in the game, good things happened! Great strides were made for Black people and American democracy.

These freely available YouTube lectures encourage white people to build muscle — the muscle of courage that allows us to fully acknowledge the consequences of our history. The history Dr. Stewart is talking about is the tortured history of white people’s brutality to Black people. We are asked to bulk-up our tolerance to see and believe the violence of white supremacy history so as to forge a personal path, a more empathetic path, a path that moves us differently in the world. We come to understand ourselves more honestly — we question our personal privilege and our own supremacy views. We see ourselves as embedded in a deeply racist society. We become impelled to make changes in our lives, beginning in small ways. Suggestions: shop at a Black-owned business, donate time or money to a Black non-profit. Better yet, get to know a Black person on a personal basis by sharing some aspect of life together.

Although the series is non-political, a parallel is made between our current times and the beginnings of the Jim Crow era in the late 19th century, with its long historical tail. In this present distressful time, may these videos help us cultivate the courage to become less fragile, less timid, and more resolute and clear-eyed in our moral conviction about what needs to be done and how we can take the next step forward to do it.