This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture

In this episode, Dr. Katherine Parkin, Professor of History at Monmouth University interviews Dr. Traci Parker, Associate Professor in the W.E.B. DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.  Parker is a scholar of women’s history, racism, class, labor, capitalism, and consumer culture.  Lizabeth Cohen called her first book, Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s, "fascinating" and Victoria Wolcott heralds it as a "powerful and largely untold story."  In addition to talking about consumers and workers and civil rights, Parker also shares some of her new research, exploring marriage in the Black power movement.  This show can be listened to on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts including on Spotify and Stitcher.

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discuses the Black and African American influence on the Beatles with Dr. Kenneth A. Womack one of the nation’s foremost scholars of the band. Ken is a writer, literary critic, and music historian as well as a Professor of English and Popular Music at Monmouth University. He is the author of the bestselling book Solid State: The Story of Abbey Road and the End of the Beatles, John Lennon 1980: The Last Days in the Life, and Sound Pictures: The Life of Beatles Producer George Martin and several essays on literary criticism and four novels. 

In this episode, Dr. Walter D. Greason discusses African Americans in the history of New Jersey. Greason is a pioneering scholar in the field of African American history. His groundbreaking book Suburban Erasure: How the Suburbs Ended the Civil Rights Movement in New Jersey is one of the first complete scholarly surveys on African Americans in the history of New Jersey with a focus on the twentieth century. This show can be listened to on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts including on Spotify and Stitcher.  

In this episode, Caine Jordan, Guy Emerson Mount, and David Johnson continue their provocative conversation about reparations. For them, there is no amount of monetary compensation that can repair the harm done to Black and African American communities in enslavement, Jim Crow and, more recently, as a result of mass incarceration. This is Part II of a two Part series on Reparations as Restorative Justice. 

In this episode, Guy Emerson Mount, Caine Jordan, and David Johnson discuss the idea of reparations and the Reparations Movement in the global African Diaspora with Hettie V. Williams. These scholars reframe the notion of justice “turning the idea on its head” and declare that monetary compensation for the injury of slavery, and racism more generally, can only be understood as a restorative on-going process or praxis. In other words, there is no amount of monetary compensation that can repair the harm that has been done to Black and African American communities worldwide. This is a two-part series. 

In this episode, Dr. Nicole Pulliam, Associate Professor of Educational Counseling at Monmouth University, interviews Dr. Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs at Georgia State University. Parsons-Pollard has a wealth of experience in higher education as a Professor and administrator at various institutions including at Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia State University, and Monmouth University to her current position at Georgia State University. Dr. Pulliam teaches courses on social justice, diversity, student affairs/college counseling, and human growth/development. She has more than 15 years of experience in higher education as a Professor, advisor, and career development specialist. Follow Nicole on Twitter @NPulliam_PhD and BADFU @bad_union for updates about our organization.