Simon Balto, a former graduate student, was awarded the Nation Endowment for the Humanities 2020-2021 academic grant for his project entitled: Racial Framing: Blackfaced Criminals in Jim Crow America. The controversy over early-2019 revelations …
Event
Dr. Christy Clark-Pujara will lead a workshop on the Historical Civil Rights Movement on MLK day
Area Youth Getting Ready to Mobilize at MLK Day Youth Call to Service
A Tribute To Professor Teju Olaniyan
For Tejumola Olaniyan: Scholar, Teacher, Mentor, Father. Note: This is a very long post. In my moment of grief, I take solace in writing this reflection to process my confusion and sadness. Thank you to …
An Evening with Jazz Author Maxine Gordon & the UW Blue Note Ensemble
Thursday, October 31st 7:30pm, Collins Recital Hall in the UW Hamel Music Center, 740 University Avenue. Free admission. Celebrating the life and legacy of legendary jazz saxophonist Dexter Gordon in words and music, this …
African Americans In Europe: London, Copenhagen, and Paris
Next Wednesday, October 16th, Afro-American Studies Professor Ethelene Whitmire will be on a panel about African Americans in Europe: London, Copenhagen, and Paris in Chicago at the School of the Arts Institute of Chicago. “African Americans have been traveling to and living in Europe since and before the end of slavery, right up to the present. Perhaps most famously noted in the writings of James Baldwin. Join us for a discussion of some of the varied aspects of this long and wonderfully complex story.”
Book Reading: Simon Balto- Occupied Territory Policing Black Chicago
A Room of One’s Own is thrilled to welcome Simon Balto, author of Occupied Territory!
In Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, a history of Chicago from 1919 to the rise and fall of Black Power in the 1960s and 1970s, Simon Balto narrates the evolution of racially repressive policing in black neighborhoods as well as how black citizen-activists challenged that repression. Balto demonstrates that punitive practices by and inadequate protection from the police were central to black Chicagoans’ lives long before the late-century “wars” on crime and drugs. By exploring the deeper origins of this toxic system, Balto reveals how modern mass incarceration, built upon racialized police practices, emerged as a fully formed machine of profoundly antiblack subjugation.
Simon Balto is assistant professor of history and African American studies at the University of Iowa.
Event address:
315 W. Gorham St.
Madison, WI 53703-2218
Thulani Davis receives a Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award
Congratulations! Thulani Davis received a Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award. Through the generosity of the Vilas Trust, the Office of the Provost is able to provide the Vilas Faculty Early Investigator Awards to recognize …
Longtime friend remembers fellow poet and playwright Ntozake Shange
Poet, novelist, and trailblazing playwright Ntozake Shange died this weekend in Bowie, MD., at the age of 70. She was only the second African-American woman ever to have a play on Broadway. Shange is best …
Faculty members Thulani Davis and Craig Werner Pay Tribute to Aretha Franklin
Two members of the Afro-American Studies faculty contributed to national tributes to Arethra Franklin — Thulani Davis on All Things Considered Craig Werner on NBC News, both lending their expertise on Aretha Franklin.
Michael Thornton leads students through encounters with prejudice
Michael Thornton says he got his education in the school of hard knocks (before he got his Ph.D. at University of Michigan.) Growing up in a military family, he had to pull up stakes often, …