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: […]
Black history
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 […]
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 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 […]
“The issue is not white supremacy, the issue is which whites will be supreme”
[History] cuts a lot of the bullshit. If somebody can just say “white supremacy,” it releases them from having to talk about something that my mentor C. Vann Woodward pointed out many years ago in discussing the disenfranchisement movement in […]
The Author’s Corner with Leslie A. Schwalm
Leslie A. Schwalm is Professor Emeritus of History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. This interview is based on her new book, Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America (University of North Carolina […]
The Author’s Corner with Thomas Aiello
Thomas Aiello is Professor of History, Africana Studies, and Anthrozoology at Valdosta State University. This interview is based on his new book, Practical Radicalism and the Great Migration: The Cultural Geography of the Scott Newspaper Syndicate (University of Georgia Press, […]
Episode 109: “The Voice and Faith of Sojourner Truth”
In this episode we talk with historian and biographer Nancy Koester about her new book on nineteenth-century abolitionist and women’s rights advocate Sojourner Truth. Our discussion focuses on Truth’s lifelong pursuit of a just society, a deeper knowledge of God, and […]
Steven Mintz: “I find it stunning that the World Socialist Web Site remains the place to turn if one truly wants to understand…the controversies surrounding ‘The 1619 Project.'”
At his blog at Insider Higher Ed, University of Texas American historian Steven Mintz offers a brief review of both the AP African American Studies course and the American Historical Review‘s forum on the 1619 Project. His take on AP […]
The president of the AAC&U responds to the the Advanced Placement African American Studies controversy in Florida
Not familiar with what is going in Florida regarding this course? Get up to speed here. Lynn Pasquerella is president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities. Mary Dana Hinton is immediate past chair of the AAC&U Board of […]
The Author’s Corner with Leslie M. Alexander
Leslie M. Alexander is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of History at Rutgers University. This interview is based on her new book, Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States (University […]
The Author’s Corner with Jacqueline Jones
Jacqueline Jones is Ellen C. Temple Professor of Women’s History Emerita at the University of Texas at Austin. This interview is based on her new book, No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the […]
Rep. Scott Perry references Frederick Douglass from the House floor. Historian David Blight is having none of it.
I have never voted for Scott Perry, but he does represent me in the United States House of Representatives. Perry is the chairman of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. He refused to cooperate with the House committee investigating January 6th […]
The Author’s Corner with Elliott Drago
Elliott Drago is Editorial Officer of the Jack Miller Center. This interview is based on his new book, Street Diplomacy: The Politics of Slavery and Freedom in Philadelphia, 1820-1850 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022). JF: What led you to write Street […]
The Author’s Corner with Trent Brown
Trent Brown is Professor of American Studies at Missouri University of Science and Technology. This interview is based on his new book, Roadhouse Justice: Hattie Lee Barnes and the Killing of a White Man in 1950s Mississippi (LSU Press, 2022). […]
Advanced Placement African American Studies: a progress report
Back in August we brought your attention to Advanced Placement African American Studies. Sixty high schools around the country are piloting this new course during the 2022-2023 academic year. Over at CNN, Brandon Tensley reports on how things are going […]