Episodios
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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 Bostonâs 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 Womenâs 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
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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 Baldwinâs 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
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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 âcrisscrossed the nationâ 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 Askewâs work click here: Crossing the Waters Institute for Cultural Exchange
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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 Peopleâs 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 Americaâs greatest activist moralists). In this text she argues that âwide ranging groups have made civil rights claims that echo those made by Black civil rights activists of the 1960sâ 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 âas the newly oppressed minorities.â 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
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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 Americaâs 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.
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In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams interviews Mario Rodrigues of My Brotherâs 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 Brotherâs 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 Brotherâs 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 behaviorsâall in an effort to create a, âsafe and more nurturing environment for the young generation.â The organization does this by providing mentorship, vocational training, recreational opportunities, and professional guidance. My Brotherâs 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
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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 womenâs 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 Robinsonâs 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. Eigâs 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 nationâs âfounding fathers.â This stirring account of Kingâs 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.
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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
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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 Womenâs, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Aliâs 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
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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 Howardâs recent writing is featured in the book, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor Peopleâs 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
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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 Malcolmâs legal guardian after his mother died when he was about 8 years old. Collins then had a major influence on Malcolmâs 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 explainsâat times in evocative termsâthe 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
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In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Zebulon Vance Miletsky about his book Before Busing: A History of Bostonâs 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. Bostonâs 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 âsundown city.â 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
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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 âmove the nation closer to its idealsâ through critique and highlighting the ânationâs shortcomingsâ 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 Railtonâs 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
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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
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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 Menâs 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 Kingâs 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 Kingâs vibrato. In this text, Wallace conjoins history and critical theory to discuss the âmodernist soundscapesâ that shaped Kingâs voice and expression. He further argues that Kingâs 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.
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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 âhoursâ 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.
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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 Mooreâs 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
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