Podcast appearances and mentions of Hettie V Williams

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams interviews Clarence Maclin, star of the A24 film Sing Sing. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston. Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin is an American actor who plays himself in this film about the maximum-security prison and the prison-based Rehabilitation Through the Arts program (RTA). RTA was developed by Katherine Vockins in 1996 at Ossining Correctional Facility (Sing Sing) run by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision 30 miles outside of Manhattan. The RTA program engages in theatre workshops, music, dance, visual arts, writing and poetry programs with inmates in now six maximum security prisons. Those involved in the program write and perform plays that are often original pieces created by participants. Maclin discusses the transformative power of art in this beautifully crafted film ultimately about redemption. #SingSing #RTA #theArts #PrisonReform #A24 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams interviews Dr. Jacqueline Jones about her Pulitzer Prize winning book No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggle of Boston's Black Workers (Basic Books, 2023). Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston and Jones is Professor Emerita; Ellen C. Temple Chair in Women's History and Mastin Gentry White Professor of Southern History at the University of Texas, Austin. Jones is also the author of several award-winning books including Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present (Basic Books, 1985). Labor of Love won the Bancroft Prize in 1986. She is also the winner of enumerable other awards including a MacArthur Fellowship (1999-2004) and served as president of the American Historical Association (AHA). This episode focuses on her book No Right to an Honest Living and the quest for equity waged by African Americans in nineteenth century Boston. In this book, she highlights the struggle for Black equality waged by everyday Black workers before, during and after the American Civil War. Jones argues that though Boston has long been seen as a cradle of liberty Black workers were kept from enjoying full equality particularly in the arena of work. #BlackBoston #BlackinBostonandBeyond #PulitzerPrizeHistory #BlackWorkers 

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Makeda Best. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston and Best is the Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs at the Oakland Museum of California where she overseas the curatorial collections and production departments. She was formerly a curator and head of the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art at Harvard Art Museums. Some of her exhibitions include Time is Now: Photography and Social Change in James Baldwin's America and Devour the Land: War and American Landscape Photography Since 1970. Best is also a writer, historian and author and the current curator of Framing Freedom: The Harriet Hayden Albums that recently opened at the Boston Athenaeum. Hayden was a 19th century Beacon Hill based abolitionist and social justice advocate. She was also a collector of photo albums that were given to her by prominent Bostonians. These albums that tell us about Black abolitionists, their public identities, and private lives are the subject of this exhibit and the focus of the conversation in this show. The focus of this exhibit is on two photo albums in particular owned by Harriet Hayden that contain 87 cartes-de-visite (small portrait photograph mounted on a piece of card) that help to tell us about Black material culture, social activism, and the daily lives of key figures in the abolitionist movement in Boston. For more information on the Framing Freedom exhibit click here: Harriet Hayden Albums 

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Lamont Jones. Williams in the current director of the Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston and Jones is a boxing lawyer and bid whist enthusiast. Jones has used the game to understand strategy, leadership, and argues it helps us to appreciate African American culture more broadly. He is also the author of the new book The Gist of Bid Whist: The Culturally-Rich Game from Black America published by Clyde Hill Publishing. This conversation first begins with a discussion of the historical roots of Bid Whist in the African American experience through a discussion of the Pullman Porters who played an integral role as they “crisscrossed the nation” sharing the game on the trains they worked on through the Great Migration and Civil Rights Era. He further argues that the game of Bid Whist is a more strategic game than chess and as complex as any other major card game played today. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Nick Johnson. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Johnson is a graduate student at UMass Boston and also a part of the Trotter graduate student support staff. He is a doctoral candidate in the Global Inclusion and Social Development program at UMass and his research focuses on the political ecologies of indigenous and African Diaspora communities and their collective self-determination. Nick is also involved in racial equity work and a committed to restorative justice. He discusses in this conversation his journey through academia including life as a graduate student at UMass Boston while providing listeners with some insight into the process of applying for grad schools, mentoring, and his overall experience navigating life as a Black graduate student at UMass Boston. This episode should prove useful to those interested in entering higher education as well as applying to graduate school and particularly those with an interest in studying racial justice. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Councilwoman Tania Anderson. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Anderson is a Councilwoman for district 7 in the city of Boston. She is one of a few Black women active in the politics of Boston. Anderson is also the first African immigrant and Muslim-American elected to the Boston City Council. She was born in Cape Verde and came to Roxbury at the age of ten and elected to the Council on November 2, 2021. Her district includes Roxbury, Dorchester, Fenway, and part of the South End and before coming to the City Council she was Executive Director of Bowdoin Geneva Main Streets and a parent advocate with the Boston Public Schools. She has also worked as a child social worker and managed a shelter for homeless women. Anderson shares with us some of her professional and personal background as a Black woman in politics while also sharing with us her vision for district 7 in the city of Boston. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with the formidable Ingrid Askew. Williams is the current director of the Trotter Institute at University of Massachusetts Boston and Askew is a well-known activist and culture worker and Executive Director of the Crossing the Waters Institute for Cultural Exchange located in Boston. Askew is also an African American actress, stage director, educator and cultural activist. In this discussion Askew discusses here life in the arts, faith and social justice activism including her role in helping to advance the Interfaith Pilgrimage of the Middle Passage Retracing the Journey of Slavery. The Interfaith Pilgrimage from 1998 to 1999 that involved walking from New England, down the eastern coast of the USA, across the Atlantic and walking on foot through West Africa. This journey took a total of thirteen months and involved people from various faiths, ethnicities, and backgrounds. It has been profiled on PBS in the series This Far By Faith. The Interfaith Pilgrimage has been recognized by the Parliament of World Religions in 1999 as a Gift of Service to the World. For more about Askew's work click here: Crossing the Waters Institute for Cultural Exchange 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Hajar Yazdiha about history, memory, and identity. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at University of Massachusetts Boston. Yazdiha is Assistant Professor of sociology and affiliate faculty of the Equity Research Institute at the University of Southern California. She is also the author of the recent book The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement recently published by Princeton University Press in 2023. Yazdiha uses a myriad of sources to elaborate on her thesis in this book about how the story and image of Martin Luther King, Jr. is used and abused by contemporary Americans to serve a political or social agenda. This is an important work squarely within the current expansion of King Studies (or studies of MLK one of America's greatest activist moralists). In this text she argues that “wide ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960s” including those on the far right. The right, in particular, she claims especially white, right wing social movements such as the family values advocates and the alt-right misuse the memory of King to redefine themselves “as the newly oppressed minorities.” These efforts ultimately work to distort history and undermine the move toward multicultural democracy Yazdiha argues. For more about Dr. Yazdiha click here Dr. Hajar Yazdiha and to secure a copy of her book click here: The Struggle for the People's King 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams interviews Professor Mikal Nash of Essex County Community College located in Newark, New Jersey. Williams is the current director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston. Nash is the author of Islam Among Urban Blacks: Muslims in Newark, New Jersey A Social History (2008), and Islam and the Black Experience (2018), a native Newarker, and a part-time lecturer in the Department of African American Studies and African Studies at Rutgers University-Newark. He has also participated in the American Cities and Public Spaces Project organized by the Library of Congress funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Black Muslims have long been a part of American history from the early Colonial Era down to the present as Nash attests in this conversation. Many from the Black Muslim community have contributed to the development of America's cities as workers, professionals, businessmen women and men including in places such as Newark, Deroit, and Boston. Nash here traverses this history in some detail to highlight the history of Islam among urban Blacks in America. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams interviews Mario Rodrigues of My Brother's Keeper 617 a grassroots organization that is centered in Boston, Massachusetts dedicated to the uplift of young men of color. Williams is the current Director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston. Rodrigues is one of six founders of My Brother's Keeper 617. The 617 is representative of the Boston area code. Rodrigues is candid here about his own involvement with gang activity in the city of Boston, and how he came into contact with positive mentors who played an important role in putting him on a new and more positive path in life. My Brother's Keeper 617 was founded in 2014 and it is a multifaceted organization focused on supporting young men of color in Boston by combating violence, drug use, and self-destructive behaviors—all in an effort to create a, “safe and more nurturing environment for the young generation.” The organization does this by providing mentorship, vocational training, recreational opportunities, and professional guidance. My Brother's Keeper 617 has helped hundreds of young men in the city of Boston over nearly a decade through educational, jobs training, and recreational programs. It is a fundamentally critical grassroots initiative in the city of Boston. For more about this organization and their work click here: My Brother's Keeper  

In this episode Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Jonathan Eig about his bestselling book King, A Life recently published by Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux in 2023. Williams is the Director of the Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston and her research and teaching interests include African American intellectual history, Black women's history, and race and ethnic studies. She is also the most recent president of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) from 2021 to 2023. Eig is a journalist, biographer, and bestselling author of six books including Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig (2005), Opening Day: The Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season (2007), and Ali: A Life (2017). His journalistic writings have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, and the online edition of The New Yorker. Eig's new biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. has now become the definitive work on King and in this episode, we discuss his comprehensive biography of a man he refers to as one of the nation's “founding fathers.” This stirring account of King's life presents a more humanistic and whole portrait of a man who struggled with depression, was relentlessly pursued by the FBI, and called this nation to conscience on the issue of racism. It is a must read. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Dr. Joseph N. Cooper about his experience as a Black man in academia and his work in sports studies. Williams is the director of the Trotter Institute at University of Massachusetts at Boston and a historian of the African American experience. There are less than 4 percent African American male full professors in the U.S. and Cooper is one of few in the nation who also occupies an endowed professorship at UMass Boston. He is also the inaugural Dr. J. Keith Motley Endowed Chair of Sport Leadership and Administration at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. His research concentrates on the intersection between sport, education, race, and culture with an emphasis on sport involvement as a catalyst for holistic development. Cooper is also the faculty founder of Collective Uplift (CU) which is an organization designed to educate, empower, inspire, and support individuals to maximize their holistic potential both within and beyond athletic contexts. This is a revealing conversation about what it means to be a Black male academic and one who studies sports from an interdisciplinary framework. For more information about Cooper click here Dr. Joseph N. Cooper and to order his books click here Books by Dr. Joseph N. Cooper 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Dr. Nada Ali about her experience as a Black woman on the campus of the University of Massachusetts at Boston and her work on women in the Sudan. Williams is Director of the Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at UMass Boston and Ali is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Ali's research focuses on gender and development, governance, human rights, militarization, and post conflict settings using feminist theories and methodologies with a focus on societies in the Middle East, and Africa including Sudan, South Sudan, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya and Egypt. She is also the author of Gender, Race and Sudan Exile Politics and several book chapters, journal articles, and academic policy reports. Ali also currently serves on the Trotter Institute Transition committee and the editorial board of the Trotter Review. #Trotter #TrotterInstitute #Sudan #BlackWomen

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Tejai Beulah Howard about Howard Thurman, Martin Luther King, Jr. and their intellectual connection as well as the experience of both men in Boston. Williams is the incoming director of the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston and Beulah-Howard is spiritual director, scholar of African American, race and American Christianity as well as a former senior editor with Black Perspectives the award- winning blog of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). She received her PhD from Drew University Theological School where she also received the Rev. Robert W. Edgar Prize for Social Justice for her dissertation on the Black freedom struggle.  She is also involved with Freedom Church of the Poor and several professional organizations. Dr. Beulah Howard's recent writing is featured in the book, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People's Campaign (Broadleaf, 2021) edited by Rev. Liz Theoharis, The Other Journal, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology, and Journal of American Academy of Religion. She is currently at work on a monograph on the role of the black power movement and black evangelical preachers. Beulah Howard is fast becoming one of the foremost scholars studying Howard Thurman is the U.S. today as evidenced with the roundtable that she recently organized for Black Perspectives found here: Howard Thurman and the Civil Rights Movement and for more about her work as a spiritual director click here: A Soul Vibe LLC #Thurman #MLK #BlackinBoston

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Arjun Collins about the life and legacy of Ella Little Collins and Malcolm X. Williams is the incoming director of the Trotter Institute for the Study of Black Culture at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Collins is the great nephew of Malcolm X and grandson of Ella Little Collins who was a long-time resident of Boston from the mid-1940s until her death in 1996. Ella Collins (born to Earl Little and Daisy Little in 1914 and the half-sister of Malcolm) became Malcolm's legal guardian after his mother died when he was about 8 years old. Collins then had a major influence on Malcolm's life and legacy by helping to raise him until age 21 and remaining actively engaged in supporting him throughout his life. It was she who first introduced him to Islam and took over the Organization of African Unity after he died. It was she who buried him when he died. Ella Little Collins was an activist in her own right in Boston where she was a community organizer and education advocate. Her children and grandchildren including Arjun Collins have carried on the legacy of social justice agitation down to the present. Arjun Collins here explains—at times in evocative terms—the legacy of his grandmother, uncle, and family. This is the uncut raw original edition of our interview. For more information about Arjun click here: Arjun Collins and look for his new book about the environmental and naturalist thought of his great uncle Malcolm X soon.   #MalcolmX #BlackinBostonandBeyond #Blackequality  

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky about his book Before Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). Williams is incoming director of the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston and Miletsky is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Stonybrook in New York. Before Busing takes us through the long history of the Civil Rights Movement in Boston. Miletsky begins his text by discussing the roots of American liberty and bondage in the Boston and continues with a discussion of the early push to desegregate the school system in Boston during the nineteenth century. His work is changing the way we look at the Black freedom struggle by arguing that there are more apparent links between racism in the South and North. Boston's Black citizens were in many ways leaders in the demand for civil rights reform in the public school system and in public places. In this episode, he goes as far as to reconceptualize the notion of the sundown town to the idea that given the deep segregation in sections of the city of Boston we might begin to think of the space as having a history as a “sundown city.” Before Busing is changing the way that we think about the history of the civil rights movement in the North and in the nation. For more about Dr. Miletsky click here Dr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky and for information on ordering his book click here: Before Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle #BlackBoston #BlackinBostonandBeyond

In this episode Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Ben Railton about the concept of critical patriotism. Dr. Williams is the director of the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston and Railton is Professor of English Studies at Fitchburg State University a public institution in Fitchburg Massachusetts. He is also the author of Of Thee I Sing: The Contested History of American Patriotism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021) in which he claims that there are four competing concepts of American patriotism including critical, active, mythic, and celebratory. Railton argues that critical patriotism is the type of patriotism operationalized to “move the nation closer to its ideals” through critique and highlighting the “nation's shortcomings” or flaws. African Americans he further contends have been central to this history of critical patriotism from the acts of Crispus Attucks during the American Revolution to the writings of James Baldwin in the mid-twentieth century. Railton identifies several Black Bostonians as practitioners of these four types of patriotism including Attucks, Phillis Wheatley, Elizabeth Freeman (MumBet), and David Walker. For more about Railton's book click here Of Thee I Sing and another example of Black critical patriotism here Black Critical Patriotism and on the tourist site he mentions click here The Black Heritage Trail #BlackBostonians #BlackFreedom #BlackCriticalPatriots 

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Drs. Rachel Jessica Daniel Director of the Center for Employee Enrichment and Development (CEED) at Massasoit Community College in Brockton, Massachusetts, and President of the Bay State National Council on Black American Affairs, and Carine Sauvignon Executive Dean for the Canton Campus at Massasoit Community College. Massasoit has one of the first Black Studies majors at a community college in the state of Massachusetts. This program came took a decade long struggle to get certified but given that Massasoit is one of the more diverse community colleges in the state the students helped to demand this change. The program is interdisciplinary in scope and includes courses on African American literature, history, music, and culture. Professors from several academic units teach for the program and Sauvignon is one of the architects of the curriculum along with a range of other faculty on the campus. Devlin and Sauvignon tell a detailed story of how the Black Studies program at their institution came into development. These women are lively and passionate about this two-year program in a time when Black Studies is under assault across the nation. Massachusetts has been a leader in this area with some of the earliest Black Studies programs in the nation appearing at schools such as Brandeis University in 1969. There are also plans to ensure that transfer agreements are in places with institutions such as the University of Massachusetts at Boston. For more information about this program at Massasoit click here Black Studies at Massasoit Community College       

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in discussion about Martin Luther King, Jr. with Dr. Maurice O. Wallace. Williams is Director of the Trotter Institute at UMass Boston and Wallace is Professor of English at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, author of Constructing the Black Masculine: Identity and Ideality in African American Men's Literature and Culture, 1775-1995, and coeditor of Pictures of Progress: Early Photography and the Making of African American Identity. Williams and Wallace discuss his latest book King's Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Duke University Press, 2022) in which he explores the history of sound in the Black experience through an analysis of King's vibrato. In this text, Wallace conjoins history and critical theory to discuss the “modernist soundscapes” that shaped King's voice and expression. He further argues that King's vibrato was produced out of a series of elements including ecclesiastical architecture, instrumentation (the organ), the audience, song, and technology. For more about Wallace click here Maurice O. Wallace and to order his book click on this link King's Vibrato: Modernism, Blackness, and the Sonic Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. 

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Joy Springfield, Esq. about race and legal services. Williams is the Director of the Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Springfield is the current Pro Bono Director at Kansas Legal Services. Springfield attended an HBCU (Howard University) where she earned a B.B.A in finance and earned her J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law with a concentration in Business Law. She has extensive experience in legal services and a long record of giving back to her community having devoted “hours” to pro bono work before she joined Kansas Legal Services. In her work as an attorney, she has represented numerous low-income clients in divorce cases, criminal, guardianship and on expungements. Joy shares her knowledge with us about the legal services available to poor and working-class communities as well as how to go about securing an expungement in this episode. For more information about Joy click here: Joy Springfield and for the resources she mentions in the show click here: Kansas Legal Services Website and click here for information on expungement and for information on legal services in the Boston region click here: Massachusetts and for a list of services nationwide click on this: list of legal services in the U.S. 

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams discusses the sound of African American music in post-war France and within the larger African Diaspora with Dr. Celeste D. Moore. Williams is Director of the Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Moore is Associate Professor of History at Hamilton College in New York. Moore is a historian of African American culture, media, and Black internationalism in the twentieth century and her first book Soundscapes of Liberation: African American Mustic in Postwar France (Duke University Press, 2021) won the Chinard Prize from the Society of French Historical Studies. This conversation is focused on Moore's award-winning book Soundscapes of Liberation and the ways that Black musicians engaging in identity-making processes in France and around the globe. Moore contends that popular Black music forms such as jazz facilitated new forms of power and protest in post-war France and the world. In her sweeping history, Moore interrogates a swath of sources including newspapers, music catalogs, magazines, recordings, images, memoirs, photographs and print media. For more information about Moore visit her website: Celeste D. Moore and to order her book visit here Duke University Press 

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams discusses racism and resistance in the digital age with Dr. Rob Eschmann. Williams is Director of the Trotter Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Eschmann is a writer, scholar, filmmaker, and educator from Chicago and Associate Professor of Social Work and a member of the Data Science Institute at Columbia University; and Faculty Associate at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Eschmann's book When the Hood Comes Off: Racism and Resistance in the Global Digital Age (University of California Press, 2023) discusses the changing nature of racism in interpersonal encounters and online. Drawing on a wealth of data using a mixed methods approach, he demonstrates in his text how the new media impacts race and racism in society. His website with more information about his book and work can be found here: Rob Eschmann click for details. 

This is the inaugural episode of the new podcast Black in Boston and Beyond a podcast show of the Trotter Institute hosted by Director Dr. Hettie V. Williams. The Trotter Institute is located at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. In this episode, Williams discusses Slavery in Boston a new exhibit at Faneuil Hall in Boston about the horrors of enslavement with curator Joseph Bagley. Bagley is the city archaeologist for Boston. In this episode, he goes into detail about the new two-story exhibit that just opened in Boston in June that is free and open to the public. There is also an extensive online exhibit for viewing by the public with more than 60,000 artifacts included. Bagley is also candid about the debate over changing the name to Faneuil Hall given that Peter Faneuil held persons to service. Faneuil was a slavery among many across colonial Boston. Slavery was central to the colonial economy in both the northern and southern section of the American colonies. The online version of the exhibit can be found here: BOSTON SLAVERY EXHIBIT and the hours for the in person exhibit at Faneuil Hall: 10 am to 7 pm. 

In this episode, the new podcast of the Trotter institute Black in Boston and Beyond is introduced. Black in Boston and Beyond is the podcast of the Trotter Institute out of the University of Massachusetts at Boston hosted by Dr. Hettie V. Williams. Williams is the current Director of the Trotter Institute. The Trotter Institute was founded in 1984 to address the concerns of Black communities in Boston and Massachusetts through research, social advocacy, and public service. It is named for William Monroe Trotter, whose political advocacy, radical journalism, and Black internationalism placed Diasporic communities across the United States, the Caribbean, and Africa in critical conversation. Black in Boston and Beyond will include conversations with members of the faculty, authors, community activists, and students about the Black experience in the history and culture of Boston. 

This is the finale episode of season 6. In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses women of color in the academy with Drs. Zaneta Rago-Craft and Nicole Pulliam. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and Rago-Craft is the inaugural director of the Intercultural Center at Monmouth. Pulliam is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership as well as the founding director of the Social Justice Academy at Monmouth University. These two women are campus leaders with a wealth of experience in their fields and higher education administration more broadly. Their discussion of the issues, struggles, and obstacles faced by women of color in academia including some discussion of self-care is insightful. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black athletes, political protest, and social justice with Shaun M. Anderson. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University located in West Long Branch, New Jersey and Anderson is Associate Professor of Organizational Communication at Loyola Marymount University and the founder of CSR Global Consulting LLC, a firm dedicated to helping sport organizations develop strategic plans to effectively communicate their corporate social responsibility efforts. Anderson has become a major voice in the conversation regarding sport and social change and his work has been featured in several media outlets including in The Huffington Post, Black Enterprise Magazine and the Washington Times.  

Season 6, Episode 9In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the broomstick wedding ritual with Tyler D. Parry. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University located in West Long Branch, New Jersey and Parry is Associate Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies. Parry's research focuses on slavery in the Americas, cultures in the African Diaspora, the historical memory of slavery in the Americas, cultures in the African Diaspora and historical memory. This conversation is about his first book Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of A Black Wedding Ritual published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2020. In this fascinating history of the broomstick wedding ritual, Parry traverses a series of cultures including African Diaspora communities to trace the long history of this ritual that has become important in the history of African American life. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the origins and impact of hip hop with Anwar Uhuru as part of a series of episodes to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and an affiliate faculty member with the departments of Philosophy and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Their research focuses on human value based on race, gender, sexuality, and ableism with publicans in the Journal of Hip Hop Studies, The APA Newsletter, Philosophy and the Black Experience, and Radical Philosophy Review. They are also known for teaching popular courses at Wayne State on Black Detroit and Politics and Culture in Anglophone Caribbean. Uhuru is a frequent guest on the show as a rising public intellectual and scholar who has a wide range of expertise on subjects related to race, gender, sexuality, and culture. 

In this episode Hettie V. Williams discusses the African Presence in Latin America with Luis Mora-Ballesteros. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Mora-Ballesteros is Lecturer of Spanish and Literatures of Latin America and the Caribbean in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Monmouth University. This conversation focuses primarily on the African influences on Latin American dance, literature, and culture including some discussion on how these influences also represent connections to the afterlives of slavery. This is particularly evident in the song, dance, and music culture of the African descended communities of Latin America and the Caribbean.   

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the Golden Age of Hip Hop in the 1980s and 1990s with Professor Claude Taylor. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Taylor is Director for Academic Transition and Inclusion and Professor of communication and media at Monmouth University. Taylor also works with the First To Fly program at Monmouth that focuses on the development and support of first generation college students. He is a popular professor and his area of teaching interests include race, rhetoric, and discourse. This episode is one of a series of episodes this season to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Hip Hop now a global phenomenon. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Haiti and Black internationalism with Leslie M. Alexander. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Alexander is the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of several essays, articles, book chapters, and books about the African Diaspora including her latest text Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States recently published by the University of Illinois Press. The groundbreaking text is the subject of our conversation as Alexander elaborate on the centrality of Haiti to Black consciousness and Black activism across the African Diaspora in the nineteenth century.  

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black in graduate school with Lauren T. Rorie. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Rorie is currently an adjunct professor in the perspectives program at Monmouth. She discusses her experiences as a Black student at the undergraduate and graduate level and provides Black graduate students with advice on how to navigate PWIs as graduate students or part time instructors in their post graduate life. Rorie has recently been accepted into several prestigious graduate programs in history.  

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the Black Church in film and television with Dr. Anwar Uhuru. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and an affiliate faculty member with the departments of Philosophy and Gender, Sexuality and Women's Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Their research focuses on human value based on race, gender, sexuality, and ableism with publicans in the Journal of Hip Hop Studies, The APA Newsletter, Philosophy and the Black Experience, and Radical Philosophy Review. They are also known for teaching popular courses at Wayne State on Black Detroit and Politics and Culture in Anglophone Caribbean. In this episode, they discuss with Williams the satire Honk for Jesus, Save Your Soul a recent film by Monkeypaw Productions and executive producer Jordan Peele directed by Adamma Ebo. They also discuss the Black Church in film and tv more generally in this episode. This film about the Black megachurch culture in the American South is currently viewable on Netflix. 

In this episode Hettie V. Williams discusses mentoring and the African/African American experience with Julius O. Adekunle. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Adekunle is Professor of African history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Adekunle is the author/editor of several books including Converging Identities: Blackness in the Modern African Diaspora, Religion in Politics: Secularism and National Integration in Modern Nigeria, and Culture and Customs of Rwanda. His area of teaching/research is religion and culture in Nigeria with a focus on the Colonial Era and the twentieth century. He has also written enumerable essays, book chapters, reviews and commentaries for various academic journals and other academic outlets. Julius also teaches a variety of courses on the African experience at Monmouth including the History of Africa, Nationalism in Africa, and Colonialism in Africa. He is a much-loved teacher professor and friend to many at Monmouth and beyond. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses race, masculinity, Black men, and policing with Dr. Karanja Keita Carroll. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Carroll is a Lecturer in Black and Latinx Studies at as a member of the Department of Black & Latinx Studies at Baruch College (CUNY). Carroll's teaching and research interests revolve around African-centered theory and methodology with an emphasis on social and psychological theory. He is also an activist and advocate of Prison Education having taught at various facilities including SCI-Chester, Shawangunk (NYSDOC), Sullivan (NYDOC) and Brookwood Secure Center (NYSDJJOY). His writings have appeared in multiple outlets including in the Journal of Pan African Studies, Western Journal of Black Studies, and the Journal of the International Society of Teacher Education. Carroll discusses the recent events in Memphis, Tennessee from both a personal and academic perspective in this episode.  

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses empowering young Black males with Dr. Vernon Smith. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and Smith is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership. Smith teaches courses centered on social justice advocacy in educational counseling and has published several papers on the subject including in the Journal of Professional School Counseling, The Family Journal, and in the Journal of School Counseling. He is a passionate scholar and teacher interested in the issues concerning Black youth in the African Diaspora. Smith has worked to develop and create Empowering Young Black Males Leadership Mentoring Program that has serviced dozens of Black youth out of the Neptune High School by pairing these young men with Monmouth University students. This is the focus of our conversation today.   

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses race, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance by Beyonce Knowles with Dr. Anwar Uhuru. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American History at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is an expert in gender and culture studies working on a forthcoming book about reparations. Uhuru is a frequent guest on the show and one of the founding members of BADFU at Monmouth University where he was previously employed as an Assistant Professor of African American Literature in the Department of English. Uhuru provides with some terrific insight here on the place of Knowles in the history and culture of the African Diaspora. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses jailing and mass incarceration with Dr. Melanie D. Newport. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Newport is an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Connecticut and the author of This is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022). This conversation is structured mainly around Newport's recently published book on jailing with a focus on the Cook County Jail in Chicago. In this text, Newport argues that jailing has been central to the mass incarceration project in the modern history of the United States. She links jailing to local politics and, also, community activism. Newport contends that there is a longer history of mass incarceration connected to racialized “politically repressive” jailing. She includes in this history a discussion of a host of historical actors key to this history such as wardens, correction officers, sheriffs, jailed people themselves and the network of community activists who sought to reform and imagine “their jail.” This is a groundbreaking work in the ever-expanding history of the carceral state. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black music, culture, and criticism with Dr. Guthrie Ramsey. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Ramsey is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Who Hears Here? On Black Music, Pasts and Present published by the University of California Press in 2022. Ramsey is a noted pianist, composer, and Professor of African American music, history, and culture. He is also a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ramsey has authored several books on African American music history and culture. He is one of the nation's foremost scholars of Black music culture. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black soldiers and families through the Civil War era with Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Pinheiro is Assistant Professor of African American history at Furman University and the author of The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice published by the University of Georgia Press in 2022. This conversation is focused on Pinheiro's discussion of Black free born soldiers from Philadelphia, their war time service, and post-war attempts to secure their pensions including how the Civil War impacted Black families. These families faced racial discrimination before, during, and after the war. This was particularly prevalent in their attempts to receive their pensions when the war was over leading to in some cases the devastation. Pinheiro finds that the processes for securing pensions were often discriminatory and invasive. This book The Families' Civil War is a groundbreaking work of history that anyone interested in the history of the Civil War, gender politics, family and race in U.S. history should consider readings.        

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses a short documentary film on Asbury Park, New Jersey titled “The Great Migration and Asbury Park” with Erin Fleming, and Claude Taylor. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University, Fleming is the Director of Production Services at Monmouth, and Taylor is a Professor of Communication and Director for Academic Transition and Inclusion at Monmouth. Fleming is the producer and director of the short film “Asbury Park and the Great Migration.” This short film features Claude Taylor, who was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Madonna Carter Jackson, who also spent her early life in Asbury Park, and preeminent scholar of African Americans in New Jersey Graham Russell Gao Hodges. Hodges is author of Black New Jersey: 1664 to the Present published by Rutgers University Press. African Americans have populated the city of Asbury Park for decades and this is a region that has contributed greatly to the history of African Americans from the rise of the Great Migration, the formation of the NAACP, through the Civil Rights Movement, to the present.  

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Christopher Willoughby. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History at Monmouth University. Willoughby is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine and Health at Pitzer College and the author of Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2022. He is also the editor of Medicine and Healing in the Age of Slavery. This conversation focuses primarily on Willoughby's Masters of Health and the disturbing history of race, medicine, and health in the U.S. White supremacist thinking and racial science permeated American medical schools alongside the rise of modern medicine through the era of racial slavery. Willoughby traces this history in startling detail and including some conversation about the misuse and abuse of Black bodies in medical science down to the present.   

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black and Asian solidarity with Dr. Zaneta Rago-Craft founding Director of the Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Dr. Z identifies as multiracial and tells us some about her own Asian ancestry. She speaks here as both a DEI expert and from her personal experiences as a woman of color in the academy. This is Part II of our series on Black and Asian solidarity. We find this to be a necessary ongoing conversation, at the moment, with the rise of Anti-Asian hate that has emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an expansive history of Black and Asian solidarity as illustrated with the life-long collaboration between James and Grace Lee Boggs, Robert Williams and his travels to China, and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s friendship with Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black and Asian solidarity with Dr. Rekha Datta. This conversation is a part of a series that will run on This Week over the next season of the show. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University in the Department of History and Anthropology and Dr. Datta is a Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Monmouth University, and the former Interim Provost at the institution, she is also the Freed Endowed Chair in Social Sciences. Datta speaks from her own experience here as an Indian American and as a person with wide experience in higher education as a professor and administrator. She was also the founding Director of the Global Understanding Project “an integral part of the Institute of Global Understanding at Monmouth” which she also founded; and a recipient of a U.S. Senior Fulbright Scholar Award for her research and teaching in India. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Reighan Gillam about race and media in Brazil. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Gillam is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She is also the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media published by the University of Illinois Press in 2022. This conversation is focused on her recent book Visualizing Black Lives. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Professor Kristin Henning about the criminalization of Black youth in the U.S. and the juvenile justice system. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Henning is an attorney and nationally recognized trainer and consultant on race, adolescence and policing. She is currently the Blume Professor of Law and Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center and previously the lead attorney of the Juvenile Unit at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Henning is also the author of The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth (Pantheon Books, 1921). 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Drs. Heide Estes and Mary Rambaran-Olm about race and Medieval Studies. Estes is Professor of English in the Department of English at Monmouth University where she regularly teaches medieval literature, ecocriticism, history of the English language, and linguistics. She is also Chair of the University Qualifications Committee and a member of the Faculty Association and Inclusion working group. Estes is also editor of the journal Medieval Ecocriticisms and the author of Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination published by Amsterdam University Press in 2017. Rambaran-Olm is a literary historian specializing in the literature and history of early medieval England with a focus on the fifth to eleventh centuries. She has written several articles, essays and book chapters and is currently working on a book project about race in early medieval England. She is currently the Provost's Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto.  Some resources shared by Dr. Rambaran-Olm:This is an intro into race in Early English studies: https://medium.com/@mrambaranolm/race-101-for-early-medieval-studies-selected-readings-77be815f8d0fAlso if people want a primer on the term "Anglo-Saxon" I wrote that and it's open access here: https://medium.com/@mrambaranolm/history-bites-resources-on-the-problematic-term-anglo-saxon-part-1-9320b6a09eb7As for people to follow on Twitter who work on the Middle Ages and are doing good things:@erik_kaars@DrDadabhoy@archaeofiend@chantermestuet@ShammaBoyarin

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Erika D. Gault about digital Black Christians and Hip Hop. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Gault is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gault's scholarly work focuses on the intersection of religious history, technology, and urban Black life in post-industrial America. She is also the author of Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop (New York University Press, 2022). The focus of this show is on Dr. Gault's innovative way of rethinking the Black Church and the new generation of Black Christians that she refers to as “digital Christians” and their engagement with religion. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Professor Melissa Ziobro. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Ziobro is a Specialist Professor in Public History at Monmouth. This discussion centers on the history of Black women in the U.S. military as this is a subject that does need to be studied further by scholars and public historians more generally. See below for Professor Ziobro's recommendations/sources on Black women in the U.S. military. Resources on Black Women in U.S. Military History: Glory in Their Spirit: How Four Black Women Took On the Army during World War II, by Sandra Bolzenius, 2018. Standing Up Against Hate: How Black Women in the Army Helped Change the Course of WWII, by Mary Farrell, 2019.Excellent Library of Congress bibliography on Black women in the military: https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech//SciRefGuides/africanamericanwomenwar.htmlSee also: National Association of Black Military Womenhttps://www.nabmw.org/ 

Black women intellectuals have traditionally been overlooked in the academic study of American intellectual history. Bury My Heart in a Free Land: Black Women Intellectuals in Modern U.S. History (Praeger) highlights the important contributions of both well- and lesser-known abolitionists, civil rights activists, preachers, writers, and artists to all spheres of American life and culture, arguing that Black women and their ideas were central to some of the most important social and political campaigns of the 19th and 20th centuries. In this conversation Dr. Hettie V. Williams (Assistant Professor of African American History at Monmouth University), editor, discusses defining and redefining the public intellectual, the various pathways that Black women took into public life, the African American women's club movement, the impact of bell hooks and Audre Lorde on scholarship around Black sexuality, and bringing Black women's history into the college classroom. Diana Dukhanova is Visiting Assistant Professor of Russian at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. Her work focuses on religion and sexuality in Russian cultural history, and she is currently working on a monograph about Russian religious philosopher Vasily Rozanov. Diana tweets about contemporary events in the Russian religious landscape at https://twitter.com/RussRLGNWatch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices