Jonathan Shandell is Associate Professor of Theatre Arts at Arcadia University. This interview is based on his new book, Readying the Revolution: African American Theater and Performance from Post-World War II to the Black Arts Movement (University of Michigan Press, […]
African American history
Peter Wood’s “Black Majority” turns 50
When I started teaching colonial American history twenty-five years ago, Peter Wood’s Black Majority: Race, Rice, and Rebellion in South Carolina was on the syllabus. I used to teach it alongside Edmund Morgan’s American Slavery-American Freedom. (Today my students no […]
The Author’s Corner with Lindsey Bestebreurtje
Lindsey Bestebreurtje is a Curatorial Assistant with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. This interview is based on her new book, Built by the People Themselves: African American Community Development in Arlington, Virginia, from the Civil […]
The Author’s Corner with Samantha Ege
Samantha Ege is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Southampton. This interview is based on her new book, South Side Impresarios: How Race Women Transformed Chicago’s Classical Music Scene (University of Illinois Press, 2024). JF: What led you […]
The Author’s Corner with Patrick Parr
Patrick Parr is Professor of English at Lakeland University Japan. This interview is based on his new book, Malcolm Before X (University of Massachusetts Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write Malcolm Before X? PP: Back in 2012, I’d […]
The Author’s Corner with Derek G. Handley
Derek G. Handley is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. This interview is based on his new book, Struggle for the City: Citizenship and Resistance in the Black Freedom Movement (Penn State University Press, 2024). […]
The Author’s Corner with CJ Martin
CJ Martin is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. This interview is based on his new book, The Precious Birthright: Black Leaders and the Fight to Vote in Antebellum Rhode […]
The Author’s Corner with Justene Hill Edwards
Justene Hill Edwards is Associate Professor of History at the University of Virginia. This interview is based on her new book, Savings and Trust: The Rise and Betrayal of the Freedman’s Bank (W. W. Norton & Company, 2024). JF: What led […]
The Author’s Corner with Jonathan Lande
Jonathan Lande is Assistant Professor of History at Purdue University. This interview is based on his new book, Freedom Soldiers: The Emancipation of Black Soldiers in Civil War Camps, Courts, and Prisons (Oxford University Press, 2024). JF: What led you […]
The Author’s Corner with Katie Singer
Katie Singer is a public scholar, writer, and activist. This interview is based on her new book, Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark (Rutgers University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to write Alien Soil? KS: I wrote Alien […]
The Author’s Corner with Keidrick Roy
Keidrick Roy is a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. This interview is based on his new book, American Dark Age: Racial Feudalism and the Rise of Black Liberalism (Princeton University Press, 2024). JF: What led you to […]
The Author’s Corner with Hettie V. Williams
Hettie V. Williams is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and Director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture. This interview is based on her new book, The Georgia of the North: […]
How Wilt Chamberlain helped Richard Nixon win Black voters
Here is Shaun Assael at Politico: Wilt Chamberlain, the biggest basketball star in the world, folded his long legs into the taxi and climbed beside Richard Nixon. It was April 9, 1968, and the two had just attended Martin Luther […]
The Harlem Renaissance librarians
We don’t normally think about librarians when we talk about the revival of African-American culture in Harlem during the 1920s and 1930s. But as Jennifer Schuessler notes in a recent piece at The New York Times, scholars are starting to […]
What to read for Juneteenth
Still unfamiliar with Juneteenth? Get up to speed here. The Atlantic offers some reading suggestions, including this take on Annette Gordon-Reed’s On Juneteenth: Back in 2021, about a month before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, The Atlantic published an excerpt from Annette Gordon-Reed’s […]
Juneteenth before Juneteenth
Historians Susannah J. Ural and Ann Marsh Daly tell the stories of Black men and women celebrating emancipation well before Juneteenth became a holiday. Here is a taste of their piece at The Atlantic: In a quiet corner of a library at […]
Bill Russell International Airport?
I am completely on board with Mark Leibovich’s proposal to change the name of Logan Airport to Bill Russell Airport. Leibovich make’s his argument today at The Atlantic. Here is a taste: Naming the airport for Russell would send a […]
Ty Cobb hit .367, but Josh Gibson hit .372
Here is the Associated Press: Josh Gibson became Major League Baseball’s career leader with a .372 batting average, surpassing Ty Cobb’s .367, when Negro Leagues records for more than 2,300 players were incorporated Tuesday after a three-year research project. Gibson’s […]
The Author’s Corner with Jeffrey E. Anderson
Jeffrey E. Anderson is Professor of History and Associate Director of the School of Humanities at the University of Louisiana Monroe. This interview is based on his new book, Voodoo: An African American Religion (LSU Press, 2024). JF: What led […]
The Author’s Corner with Michael T. Bertrand
Michael T. Bertrand is Professor of History at Tennessee State University. This interview is based on his new book, Southern History Remixed: On Rock ’n’ Roll and the Dilemma of Race (University Press of Florida, 2024). JF: What led you […]