Race and Democracy

Nell Irvin Painter is a leading historian of the United States. She is the Edwards Professor of American History Emerita at Princeton University. She was Director of Princeton’s Program in African-American Studies from 1997 to 2000. In addition to her doctorate in history from Harvard University, she has received honorary doctorates from Wesleyan, Dartmouth, SUNY-New […]

Dr. Michael Simanga grew up in Detroit and moved to Atlanta where he has lived and worked for 40 years. He is an Africana Studies scholar/educator and also a multi-disciplined artist who has written, produced and directed more than 200 artistic projects including music, theatre, film, festivals and exhibitions. He is married and the father […]

Peniel sits down with Laurence Ralph to discuss his latest book, “Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him.” Laurence Ralph is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He earned both a Ph.D. and also a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Science […]

Darrick Hamilton is a university professor, the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy, and the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. Considered one of the nation's foremost scholars, economists and public intellectuals, Hamilton's accomplishments include recently being profiled in the New York Times, Mother Jones magazine […]

P. Gabrielle Foreman, PhD, is an award-winning professor of English, African American Studies, and History. A leader in the field of Black digital and public history, Dr. Foreman has been recognized for co-creating projects that build community and institutions while addressing pipeline and equity issues. As a teacher, scholar, and mentor, Dr. Foreman is committed […]

Dr. Garcia-Rios was born and raised in Durango, México, but considers El Paso, Texas, his second home. His research investigates the formation and transformation of Latino identities as well as the political implications of these transformations. He also examines voter turnout, political participation and public opinion, especially among Latino immigrants. Dr. Garcia-Rios's other academic interests include issues related to Latinos and the Voting Rights Act, border issues and border research, and the politics of Mexico. He served as Director of Polling and Data at Univision News.

Michael Eric Dyson is a man of many talents. As a professor, he has taught at some of the most prestigious universities in the nation, including Princeton, Brown, and Georgetown. He is currently a Distinguished University Professor at Vanderbilt University, where he holds positions in both the College of Arts & Science and The Divinity School. In addition to his academic pursuits, Dyson is also a gifted writer and media personality. He has authored over 25 books, including seven New York Times bestsellers, and has won numerous awards for his literary contributions, including the 2020 Langston Hughes Medal and two NAACP Image Awards. Dyson's work spans a wide range of topics, including civil rights, hip-hop, Black culture, and politics. He has written bestselling books on figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, 2Pac, Marvin Gaye, Bill Cosby, and Barack Obama. His most recent book, Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, has been described as a “searing cry for racial justice” and a “sweeping overview of racism in America.”

Julia Sweig is an award-winning author of books on Cuba, Latin America, and American foreign policy. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, the Nation, the National Interest, and in Brazil's Folha de São Paulo, among other outlets. Her book Inside the Cuban Revolution won the American Historical Association's 2003 Herbert Feis Award. She served as senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations for fifteen years and concurrently led the Aspen Institute's congressional seminar on Latin America for ten years. She holds a doctorate and master's degree from the Johns Hopkins University. She is a non-resident senior research fellow at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin and the host creator, host and executive producer of the podcast In Plain Sight, a co-production of Best Case Studios and ABC Audio. She lives with her family outside of Washington, D.C.

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. Mr. Sunstein has testified before congressional committees on many subjects, and he has been involved in constitution-making and law reform activities in a number of nations. Mr. Sunstein is author of many articles and books, including Republic.com (2001), Risk and Reason (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), The Second Bill of Rights (2004), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Worst-Case Scenarios (2001), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013) and most recently Why Nudge? (2014) and Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (2014).

A prolific and energizing speaker on a range of diversity, equity, and inclusion topics, Shaun Harper has delivered hundreds of keynote addresses around the world, to audiences comprised of thousands. He also is founder and executive director of the USC Race and Equity Center. Dr. Harper has published 12 books, and is author of more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and other academic publications. Shaun Harper, Ph.D. is the Clifford and Betty Allen Professor at the University of Southern California.

Danté Stewart is a minister, essayist, and cultural critic. He is author of Shoutin' In The Fire: An American Epistle. Named by Religion News Service as one of “Ten Up-And-Coming Faith Influencers”, his work has appeared on CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN's The Undefeated, Sojourners, and more. He received his B.A. in Sociology from Clemson University. He is currently studying at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Ga.

Thomas A. Guglielmo is Associate Professor of American Studies at George Washington University. He has a PhD in History from the University of Michigan. His first book, White on Arrival: Italians, Race, Color, and Power in Chicago (Oxford, 2003), won the Organization of American Historians' Frederick Jackson Turner Award and the Society of American Historians' Allan Nevins Prize. His second book, Divisions: A New History of Racism and Resistance in America's World War II Military (Oxford University Press, 2021), won the Society for Military History's Distinguished Book Award. His articles have appeared in the Journal of American History, the American Journal of Sociology, the Journal of American Ethnic History, and other publications. His work has been supported by Harvard University's Charles Warren Center and Stanford University's Research Institute for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity.

Estevan Daniel Delgado (he/him) is the Director for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. Estevan has formal project management experience running large-scale government grants and program management experience fundraising and designing trust-based grant making opportunities and events for the Hispanic Impact Fund at Austin Community Foundation. In his professional and community-based work, Estevan seeks to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion to ensure belonging for those underrepresented in spaces of power, especially for people of color, people that identify as queer, and people that identify as disabled.

Rodell Razor has over 10 years of experience in launching and coaching small and mid sized businesses. He has developed valuable skills in business strategy, operations, sales, leadership, and human resources through the businesses he launched as well as through corporate roles held at various firms. In addition to being CEO and Founder of X-Factor Capital serves as a director and co-founder on the Board of ConstructDiversity. Jeremiah Captain has over 15 years of experience in sales marketing, public relations, and talent management. He has held various leadership roles in his entrepreneurial projects, his mandates as consultant or keynote speaker as well as various corporate roles. Jeremiah is a Co-Founder of X-Factor Consulting and serves as a Director and co-founder on the Board of ConstructDiversity.

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and was longlisted for the National Book Award. He is also the author of the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. Clint received his B.A. in English from Davidson College and his Ph.D. in Education from Harvard University. This episode of Race and Democracy was mixed and mastered by Will Shute.

Adam Serwer is an American journalist and author. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic where his work focuses on politics, race, and justice. He previously worked at Buzzfeed News, The American Prospect, and Mother Jones. Serwer has received awards from the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), The Root, and the Society of […]

Elise Hu is a host-at-large based at NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Previously, she explored the future with her video series, Future You with Elise Hu, and served as the founding bureau chief and International Correspondent for NPR’s Seoul office. She was based in Seoul for nearly four years, responsible for the network’s coverage […]

Vincent Brown is Charles Warren Professor of American History and Professor of African and African American Studies.  He directs the History Design Studio and teaches courses in Atlantic history, African diaspora studies, and the history of slavery in the Americas. Brown is the author of The Reaper’s Garden: Death and Power in the World of Atlantic […]

Peter Beinart teaches national reporting and opinion writing at the Newmark J-School and political science at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is editor-at-large for Jewish Currents, a CNN political commentator, and a fellow at the Foundation for Middle East Peace. He is also a nonfiction author and former Rhodes Scholar. His first book, “The Good […]

Cass R. Sunstein is currently the Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. In 2018, he received the Holberg Prize from the government of Norway, sometimes described as the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for law and […]

Michael Eric Dyson is a renowned scholar, ordained Baptist minister, and public intellectual born in Detroit, Michigan. His innovative scholarship, combining cultural criticism and biography, focuses on race, religion, popular culture, and contemporary issues in the African American community. Dyson’s most recent book is April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It […]

Brett Hurt is the CEO and co-founder of data. world, a Public Benefit Corporation (and Certified B Corporation) focused on building the modern catalog for data and analysis as well as the world’s largest collaborative public data catalog.

William Abranowicz has been a photographer for more than 40 years. His work is found in collections throughout the world including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Portrait Gallery in London, Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, and The Smithsonian Institute. His work has appeared in nearly every major publication in the United States, Europe, and […]

Charles L. Chavis, Jr. is Assistant Professor of Conflict Analysis and Resolution and History and Director of the John Mitchell, Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race, at the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University. Before joining the S-CAR, he served as the Museum Coordinator for the Lillie Carroll Jackson Civil Rights […]

An internationally known cultural critic, journalist, activist, and thought leader in the area of hip-hop, youth culture, and Black political engagement, Bakari Kitwana is the Executive Director of Rap Sessions, which for the last fourteen years has conducted over 150 town hall meetings around the nation on difficult dialogues facing the hip-hop and millennial generations. […]

Dr. Don Carleton is the founding director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which was organized in 1991. Prior to the creation of the Briscoe Center, he served from October 1975 through November 1979 as founding director of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC), an urban history archives […]

Sudhir Hazareesingh FBA (18 October 1961) is a British-Mauritian historian. He has been a fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford since 1990. Most of his work relates to modern political history from 1850; including the history of contemporary France as well as Napoleon, the Republic and Charles de Gaulle. Hazareesingh is the […]

Ken Burns calls Jonathan Eig a “master storyteller.” Joyce Carol Oates calls his book, Ali: A Life, “an epic of a biography.” Eig is the author of five books, three of them New York Times best sellers. He was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. A former staff writer for […]

Dr. Maurice Hobson is an Associate Professor of African American Studies and Historian at Georgia State University. He earned the Ph.D. degree in History, focusing in African American History and 20th Century U.S. History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are grounded in the fields of African American history, 20th Century […]

Lisa B. Thompson is professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of three books, Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class(University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French Inc., 2012), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three […]

Paul Stekler is a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker whose critically praised and award-winning work includes George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire; Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style; Vote for Me: Politics in America, a four-hour PBS special about grassroots electoral politics; two segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series on the history of civil rights; Last Stand at Little […]

Keisha N. Blain is an American historian and writer. She is an Associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). She is “one of the most innovative and influential young historians of her generation.”Blain is one of the nation’s leading scholars of African American […]

Sukyi manages the Square One Project’s Roundtable on the Future of Justice Policy, and draws together academics, advocates, community leaders, and practitioners in three-day convenings to drive understanding and innovation in criminal justice reform.  Sukyi hails from Austin, Texas, where she serves as the Board Chair at Austin Justice Coalition, a black-led grassroots organization focused on local […]

Ron Kirk is Senior Of Counsel in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Dallas and Washington, D.C. offices. He is Co-Chair of the International Trade Practice Group and a member of the Sports Law, Public Policy, Crisis Management, and Private Equity Practice Groups. Ambassador Kirk focuses on providing strategic advice to companies with global interests. Prior to joining the firm in April […]

Mark K. Updegrove is the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. From 2009 to 2017, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library where, he hosted the Civil Rights Summit in 2014, which included Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, and oversaw a major renovation of the Library’s core […]

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a scholar who speaks to the black and blue in America. His most well-known books, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, take a wide look at black communities and reveal complexities, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for […]

Sonya Douglass Horsford currently serves as Associate Professor of Education Leadership in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on the politics of race in education leadership, policy, and reform. She is the Founding Director of the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) and Co-Director of the Urban Education […]

Rebecca Campbell has served as chief executive of the Austin Film Society since 1998. Prior to joining AFS, she spent 12 years in the nonprofit sector, serving as Executive Director of two statewide California organizations, following which she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Video and Film Production from the University of Texas […]

Laurence Ralph is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He earned both a Ph.D. and also a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgia Institute of Technology where he majored in History, Technology, and Society. Laurence has published articles on these topics […]

A prominent leader in the national movement to build positive, inclusive, and inspiring humanist communities, Greg M. Epstein has served the country’s rapidly growing population of non-religious people for nearly two decades. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts, Epstein was also named […]

Mark Whitaker spent three decades as a reporter, writer, and editor for Newsweek Magazine and in 1999 became the first African-American to lead a national newsweekly. In 2007, he joined NBC News and the following year replaced the late Tim Russert as Washington Bureau Chief. In 2011, Mark was appointed Managing Editor of CNN Worldwide, […]

Van Lathan is an established host and media personality from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He can be heard weekly on “The Red Pill” podcast, which garners over 50,000 listeners per episode, as well as on the podcast Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay. Van’s passion for sports, entertainment, and news comes across in his reporting and insightful […]

Julian Zelizer is a professor in political history at Princeton University, frequent political commentator, and author of over 900 op-eds and books covering American political history. After obtaining his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, Zelizer went on to write for The Atlantic and work as a weekly columnist at CNN. He has twice won the […]

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning journalist. Having reported for both The New York Times and Huffington Post, Trymaine currently works as a national reporter for the digital arm of MSNBC. He has been recognized for his work covering social justice issues, including the case of Trayvon Martin in 2012, for which […]

Dr. Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ politics and culture. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. As an authority on 1960s gay activism, Cervini serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Gender and […]

Dr. Karma Chávez is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies. Her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory and women of color feminism and analyzes social movement building, activist rhetoric, and coalitional politics. Dr. Chávez’s research explores the rhetorical practices and coalitions of […]

Robert Martin Seda-Schreiber is a chief activist of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice. Robert forged New Jersey’s first middle school gay-straight alliance, was honored as New Jersey’s State Champion of Equality, served as a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholar to Japan, received two Senate proclamations recognizing his service to the community, and was named […]

James G. Basker is President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and The Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University. Educated at Harvard College, Cambridge University, and (as a Rhodes Scholar) at Oxford University, Basker taught at Harvard for seven years before coming to Barnard. His scholarly work spans […]

Mark Atwood Lawrence is Associate Professor of History, Distinguished Fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and Director of Graduate Studies at the Clements Center for National Security at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1988 and his doctorate from Yale in […]

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is currently the host of BET News and a political contributor for CNN. An award-winning journalist, Dr. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. […]

Michael Eric Dyson is a renowned scholar, ordained Baptist minister, and public intellectual born in Detroit, Michigan. His innovative scholarship, combining cultural criticism and biography, focuses on race, religion, popular culture, and contemporary issues in the African American community. Dyson’s most recent book is April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Death and How It […]