Jason P. Chambers is Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Professor of Advertising at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. This interview is based on his new book, Advertising Revolutionary: The Life and Work of Tom Burrell (University of […]
African American history
The Author’s Corner with Marvin Chiles
Marvin Chiles is Assistant Professor of African American History at Old Dominion University. This interview is based on his new book, The Struggle for Change: Race and the Politics of Reconciliation in Modern Richmond (University of Virginia Press, 2023). JF: […]
The Author’s Corner with Whitney Nell Stewart
Whitney Nell Stewart is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas. This interview is based on her new book, This Is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations (University of North Carolina Press, 2023). JF: […]
The Author’s Corner with Travis D. Boyce
Travis D. Boyce is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of African American Studies at San JosĂ© State University. This interview is based on his new book, Steady and Measured: Benner C. Turner, A Black College President in the […]
The Author’s Corner with William Jennings
William Jennings is Senior Lecturer of French and Deputy Head of School of Arts at the University of Waikato. This interview is based on his new book, Dibia’s World: Life on an Early Sugar Plantation (Liverpool University Press, 2023). JF: […]
Celebrating John Hope Franklin
If you are unfamiliar with the work of John Hope Franklin, check out our interview with University College, London historian Nick Witham in Episode 120 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast. We talk about Franklin’s most important work, […]
The Author’s Corner with James M. Thomas
James M. Thomas is Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Mississippi. This interview is based on his new book, The Souls of Jewish Folk: W. E. B. Du Bois, Anti-Semitism, and the Color Line (University of […]
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”: A short history
Over at Black Perspectives, historian Nico Slate reflects on the history of this famous phrase with a short analysis that spans from Theodore Parker to Martin Luther King Jr. to Barack Obama and beyond. Here is a taste of his […]
Smithsonian releases 590 reels of blues music
Here is NPR:
For some at a 1933 civil rights conference, fighting racial oppression meant fighting class oppression
Over at Jacobin, historian Eben Miller tells the story of the 1933 Amenia conference. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hosted the event in Amenia, New York. W.E.B. Du Bois was co-organizer. Some of the country’s […]
John McWhorter on the Florida African American history curriculum
I took a little heat for my take on the Florida African American history controversy. Last month I wrote: The standards were much better than I expected. If I was a high school teacher in Florida I could easily work […]
Joe Biden approves three national Emmett Till monuments
Here is Juliana Kim at National Public Radio: President Biden will designate a national monument at three sites in honor of Emmett Till and his mother, Mamie Till-Mobley — both of whom served as catalysts for the civil rights movement. Biden is […]
Did the enslaved “benefit” from slavery?
Here is CBS News: Florida’s 2023 Social Studies curriculum will include lessons on how “slaves developed skills” that could be used for “personal benefit,” according to a copy of the state’s academic standards reviewed by CBS News. The lessons in question fall […]
The International African American Museum opens in Charleston
Here is Holland Cotter at The New York Times: In Charleston Harbor, where the initiating shots of the Civil War were fired — Fort Sumter is distantly visible — I’m on the site of a former shipping pier known as Gadsden’s […]
Juneteenth has always been “distinctly local” commemoration
Historian Tiya Miles wonders how the celebration of Juneteenth might change now that it is a federal holiday. Here is a taste of her piece today at The New York Times: It’s been two years since Juneteenth became a federal […]
Episode 110: “How Black Ball Saved the Soul of the NBA”
The National Basketball Association is a multi-billion-dollar industry driven by Black athletes with global influence. But as our guest Theresa Runstedtler argues, the success of today’s NBA players rests on the labor activism of 1970s NBA stars who fought with […]
The Author’s Corner with Kevin McQueeney
Kevin McQueeney is Assistant Professor of History at Nicholls State University. This interview is based on his new book, A City without Care: 300 Years of Racism, Health Disparities, and Health Care Activism in New Orleans (University of North Carolina […]
Did Martin Luther King Jr. really criticize Malcolm X?
Here is Gillian Brockell at The Washington Post: Jonathan Eig was deep in the Duke University archives researching his new biography of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. when he made an alarming discovery: King’s harshest and most famous criticism of Malcolm X, in which […]
The Author’s Corner with Kevin Kenny
Kevin Kenny is Professor of History and Glucksman Professor in Irish Studies at New York University. This interview is based on his new book, The Problem of Immigration in a Slaveholding Republic: Policing Mobility in the Nineteenth-Century United States (Oxford […]
Justin Jones and Justin Pearson in historical context
Over at The Washington Post, historians Ansley Quiros and Anthony Siracusa connect the recent removal of Justin Jones and Justin Pearson from the Tennessee legislature to the early civil rights movement in Nashville. Here is a taste of their piece: […]