Howard Thurman was a mid-20th century theologian, writer, activist, and mystic who had a profound influence on the leaders of the Civil Rights movement. Thurman’s writings–especially his 1949 work Jesus and the Disinherited–provided an intellectual and spiritual guide to those trying to...
The Chronicle of Higher Education talks with Vanderbilt University historian Brandon Byrd about his recent article “The Rise of African American Intellectual History.” Here is a taste of the interview: An old-guard intellectual historian like Perry Miller depended almost exclusively […]
Christopher Cameron is Associate Professor of History at the University of North Carolina–Charlotte. This interview is based on his new book, Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism (Northwestern University Press, 2019). JF: What led you to write Black Freethinkers? CC: Like countless scholars...
We usually think of the civil rights movement in political, moral, and even religious terms, but we seldom think about it in terms of what historian Joshua Clark Davis calls a “movement for intellectual change.” Here is a taste of...
This is going to be good. The forum will include posts by Brandon Byrd, Kenneth Morris, Neil Roberts, Manisha Sinha, David Blight, Leigh Fought, Christopher Bonner, and Noelle Trent. Here is what you can expect: Black Perspectives, the award-winning blog of...
Over at History News Network, book historian Jonathan Rose discusses a 1943 study of African American reading habits in Louisville. Here is a taste: In 1943 a study of reading habits was conducted in Beecher Terrace, a black Louisville public...
George Moses Horton was an African-American poet enslaved in Chatham County, North Carolina. Jonathan Senchyne, a book historian at the University of Wisconsin, has discovered a previously unknown essay by Horton entitled “Individual Influence.” Learn more about Horton and this new...
Michael Monescalchi is a graduate student in English at Rutgers University. Over at Common-place he reflects on Phillis Wheatley‘s poem “On Virtue” and her engagement with the theology of Jonathan Edwards. Monescalchi writes: “Wheatley’s saying that her soul touched by Virtue can...
Christopher J. Lebron, a political philosopher at Yale University, is concerned about the future of #BlackLivesMatter. He believes that the movement lacks an intellectual foundation in black social and political thought. His book, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A...
Born and unborn. Here is Bishop Vincent Matthews Jr. of the Church of God in Christ at yesterday’s March for Life. The Church of God in Christ is the largest African American denomination in the United States and the largest...
This looks like a great conference. Here is a taste: The upcoming year promises to be an exciting one for the African American Intellectual History Society. Not only is the organization undergoing a period of tremendous growth, it is also...
Phillis Wheatley Over at the African American Intellectual History Society blog Jared Hardesty, a historian at Western Washington University, tackles this question. Here is a taste: As a historian of slavery and colonial America, I have to admit I was...
.W.E.B. Du Bois and Ida Wells Here is the call for papers: The African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) invites proposals for its first annual conference scheduled to take place at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on March 10-11, 2016. Proposals are […]
