Departments

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Black History

  • SOURCE: The Nation
    4/18/2023

    Review: The Paradoxes of CLR James

    by Gerald Horne

    A new biography by John L. Williams examines the connections that the pathbreaking radical intellectual CLR James drew between the Haitian revolution and global struggles for emancipation in the 20th century. 

  • SOURCE: Inquest
    3/23/2023

    Martin Sostre's Vision of Collective Liberation

    by Garrett Felber

    Martin Sostre's refusal to allow the New York prison system to subject him to invasive and violating searches showed how he placed bodily autonomy at the center of a radical critique of racial oppression. At what would be his 100th birthday, his legacy is considered. 

  • SOURCE: Forward
    2/27/2023

    Philosopher Lewis Gordon's Impact on Black Jewish History

    Gordon said for him, “Black consciousness links to all oppression and that’s exactly the kind of Jewishness I was raised in. It was always explained as connected to the ethical, the political dimensions of what it was to be Jewish."

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    2/28/2023

    Conversations in Black Studies

    Komozi Woodard, Jeanne Theoharis and Robyn Spencer-Antoine discuss the 10th anniversary of an important monthly discussion series hosted by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York. 

  • SOURCE: 19th News
    1/12/2023

    Anastasia Curwood on New Shirley Chisholm Bio

    By framing Chisholm as a person with a life history, Curwood elevates knowledge of the New York congresswoman from a "first major party candidate" to a political theorist and visionary. 

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    6/1/2022

    Rescuing Shirley Chisholm's Life from Symbolism

    by Anastasia Curwood

    Writing a biography of the Congresswoman and presidential candidate required working through the distinction between Shirley Chisholm the symbol and the much more complex reality of Shirley Chisholm the woman, to see how big trends in Black history unfolded at a human scale.

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    5/3/2022

    How Josephine Baker Challenged Racism in Las Vegas

    by Claytee White

    Josephine Baker's brief stand in 1952 didn't forever break the color line in the city's casinos and clubs, but it did help Black Las Vegans push for enduring change. 

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    5/17/2021

    Black Germans and New Forms of Resistance

    by Tiffany Florvil

    Black activists and intellectuals in Germany have worked to promote knowledge of colonial and Black history as a counter to the entrenched tendency to hide and evade the subject. 

  • SOURCE: Public Books
    4/5/2021

    Remembering is Resistance

    by Jessica M. Parr

    Books by Ana Lucia Araujo and Joan Wallach Scott examine the politics of memory and history and explain the stakes of fights over teaching and memorializing oppression. 

  • SOURCE: The Guardian
    10/14/2020

    The Real Black History? The Government Wants To Ban It

    by Priyamvada Gopal

    Tory attacks on "victim narratives" in the history curriculum defend entrenched power and ignore the fact that Black British histories are about the power of protest and activism to make social change. 

  • SOURCE: The Conversation
    9/13/2020

    Black Lives Matter But Slavery Isn’t Our Only Narrative

    by Aretha Phiri and Michelle M. Wright

    "Black folks are astonishingly diverse in their cultures, histories, languages, religions, so no single definition of Blackness is going to fit everyone. When we fail to consider this, we effectively leave many Black people out of the conversation."

  • SOURCE: Black Perspectives
    6/8/2020

    Using MLK to Quell Outrage Distorts His Legacy

    by Jeanne Theoharis

    King has much to say about our contemporary moment, about the persistence of police abuse and the power of disruption, which may account, at least partly, for why this aspect of his politics is considerably less recognized.