Race and Democracy

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 […]

Brencia Berry is a San Antonio native who recently served on the Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign as the Deputy Director of Public Engagement as well as the National Deputy Advance Director. During her time on the campaign trail she had the opportunity to work as a national advance associate for Secretary Clinton, former […]

Named as one of the “100 Most Connected Men” by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world’s best known and controversial commentators on the digital revolution. He has written five books including the best-selling Cult of the Amateur, The Internet Is Not The Answer and How To Fix The Future.  He directed and wrote the […]

Dr. Cherise Smith is a professor of art history specializing in American art after 1945, especially as it intersects with the politics of identity, race, and gender. She is the Chair of the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies and is the founding Executive Director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies, which consist […]

K. Sabeel Rahman is the President of Demos, a dynamic think-and-do tank that powers the movement for a just, inclusive, multiracial democracy. Through cutting-edge policy research, inspiring litigation, and deep relationships with grassroots organizations, Demos champions solutions that will create a democracy and economy rooted in racial equity. Rahman is also an Associate Professor of […]

Michele Deitch holds a joint appointment as a senior lecturer at the LBJ School and the Law School, and is an attorney with over 30 years of experience working on criminal justice and juvenile justice policy issues with state and local government officials, corrections administrators, judges and advocates. She specializes in independent oversight of correctional […]

Gordon Abner is a public management scholar whose research focuses on improving citizens’ perceptions of public employees and government service, and on improving the morale and performance of public employees — which he is particularly interested in within the sphere of social policy. Professor Abner has employed a variety of methods in his research including […]

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Emmy Award-winning filmmaker, literary scholar, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Professor Gates has authored or co-authored twenty-one books and created fifteen documentary films, including Wonders of the African World, […]

Sherrilyn Ifill is the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization fighting for racial justice and equality. LDF was founded in 1940 by legendary civil rights lawyer (and later Supreme Court justice) Thurgood Marshall, and became a separate organization from the NAACP […]

Edwin Dorn teaches defense policy and courses about the relationship between race and immigration policy. He was dean of the LBJ School of Public Affairs from 1997 to 2005. Prior to that, Dr. Dorn spent 20 years in Washington, DC. He worked on civil rights and education policy in the Carter administration and served as […]

Khalil Gibran Muhammad is a professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the Suzanne Young Murray Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies. He is the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading […]

Kevin Cokley, Ph.D. is a Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and Educational Psychology, as well as a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for African and African American Studies at the University of Texas-Austin. Dr. Cokley’s research and teaching can be broadly categorized in the area of African American psychology. His research interests include […]

Ed Pavlić (Ph.D. Indiana University) is the Distinguished Research Professor of English and African American Studies. Affiliated faculty in Creative Writing, author of eight collections of poetry, two critical studies, and a novel, he twice served as Director of the Creative Writing Ph.D. Program in English (2006-2011, 2015-2017). His most recent books are Another Kind […]

Keffrelyn D. Brown (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison) is a Professor of Cultural Studies in Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction. She holds a faculty appointment in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, the John L. Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Women and Gender Studies. […]

Dr. Ricky Jones is a Professor and the Graduate Director & Chair in the Pan-African Studies Department at the University of Louisville. His research focuses on African American Politics and Leadership, Political Theory, African American Nationalism, Violence and Resistance, and the African American Male.

Professor Musgrove teaches courses in Post-WWII United States History at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with an emphasis on African American politics. He is the author of Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics: How the Harassment of Black Elected Officials Shaped Post-Civil Rights America (U. of Georgia, 2012) and co-author, with Chris Myers Asch, of Chocolate City, […]

Chloe Latham Sikes is a doctoral student in the Educational Policy & Planning program in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas at Austin. She holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Grinnell College and an M.A. in Curriculum & Instruction from UT-Austin. Her research interests include the intersections of immigration […]

Michael Ezra is professor of American Multicultural Studies at Sonoma State University. He is the author of the book Muhammad Ali: The Making of an Icon (2009) and editor of the books Civil Rights Movement: People and Perspectives (2009) and The Economic Civil Rights Movement: African Americans and the Struggle for Economic Power. Ezra is also the editor-in-chief of the peer-reviewed Journal […]

Pero Gaglo Dagbovie is a University Distinguished Professor of History and Associate Dean in the Graduate School.  His research and teaching interests comprise a range of time periods, themes, and topical specialties, including black intellectual history, the history of the black historical enterprise, black women’s history, black life during “the nadir,” the civil rights-Black Power movement, […]

Ashley D. Farmer is a historian of black women’s history, intellectual history, and radical politics. Her book, Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era  (UNC Press, 2017), is the first comprehensive study of black women’s intellectual production and activism in the Black Power era.  She is also the co-editor of New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual […]

Daron K. Roberts is a Harvard Law grad turned NFL coach. Currently, he is a university lecturer and founding director of the Center for Sports Leadership & Innovation at the University of Texas. He also serves as a lecturer in the Plan II Honors program where he teaches courses on sports leadership and innovation. His […]

Liliana M. Garces is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and an Affiliate Faculty at the University of Texas School of Law. She teaches courses on higher education law, equity and diversity in higher education, and race, law, and education. Her research is grounded in the intersection of law and educational […]

Jade Vásquez and Cassie Knaff are CSRD Graduate Fellows for the 2018-2019 academic year. Jade is a graduate student at the UT LBJ School of Public Affairs and is pursuing a Master’s in Global Policy Studies. Cassie Knaff is a doctoral candidate in UT’s Department of Spanish and Portuguese, and studies race, language socialization, and […]

Edmund T. Gordon is the founding (former) chair of the African and African Diaspora Studies Department, Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies and Anthropology of the African Diaspora, and Vice Provost for Diversity at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Gordon is also the former Associate Vice President of Thematic Initiatives and Community […]

Dr. Tracie Lowe is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis.

Olufemi Vaughan is a Nigerian academic whose research and teaching focuses on African political and social history, African Politics, Diaspora Studies, African Migrations and Globalization, Religion and African States. He is currently the Alfred Sargent Lee ’41 and Mary Ames Lee Professor of African Studies at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Victoria DeFrancesco Soto is a lecturer at The University of Texas’ LBJ School of Public Affairs, where she was selected as one of UT’s Game Changers. She is also a faculty affiliate of the Department of Mexican-American and Latino Studies and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Soto received her Ph.D. in political science from Duke University, […]

Laurence Ralph is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He earned both a PhD 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 […]

Dr. Joseph sits down in the studio with Dr. Sugrue to discuss the changing political futures of American cities and how that intersects with race and civil rights.

Dr. Joseph sits down with Dr. Brandon Jones, Associate Director for Student Learning and Development, to discuss Black men in higher education and student-athletes’ exploitation and achievement.

Peniel talks with Jeremi Suri on his book, “The Impossible Presidency”, and how America’s highest office has changed in perception and power throughout history. Jeremi Suri holds the Mack Brown Distinguished Chair for Leadership in Global Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin. He is a professor in the university’s Department of History and the LBJ […]

Dr. Brandon Terry sits down in Dr. Peniel Joseph’s office to discuss the political philosophy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Brandon M. Terry is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies and Social Studies at Harvard University. He earned a PhD with university distinction in Political Science and African American Studies from Yale […]

Dr. Peniel Joseph and Virginia Cumberbatch, Director of UT’s Community Engagement Center, discuss race, equity, and community engagement at UT and across Austin.

Dr. Christen Smith researches engendered anti-Black state violence and Black community responses to it in Brazil and the Americas. Her work primarily focuses on transnational anti-Black police violence, Black liberation struggles, the paradox of Black citizenship in the Americas, and the dialectic between the enjoyment of Black culture and the killing of Black people. Her book, Afro-Paradise: Blackness, Violence and Performance in […]

Dr. Daina Ramey Berry is the Oliver H. Radkey Regents Professor of History and African and African Diaspora Studies at UT Austin. Her most recent book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, traces the economic value assigned to enslaved people across their lifespans and has won multiple awards including the 2018 Hamilton Book Award.

Dr. Devin Walker earned his undergraduate degree in 2008 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he majored in Sociology and History. He earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction at The University of Texas at Austin in 2018. His research portfolio focuses on the intersection of race, sports, and education with an emphasis on international […]

Eric Tang is an Associate Professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department and faculty member in the Center for Asian American Studies. He also holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Sociology and serves as a faculty fellow with both the Institute for Urban Policy Research & Analysis and the Division of […]

Dr. Richard J. Reddick is an award-winning Associate Professor in Educational Leadership and Policy, where he serves as coordinator of the Program in Higher Education Leadership, with courtesy appointments in the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, and the Warfield Center of African and African American Studies. Dr. Reddick is also the Assistant Director […]

In the inaugural episode of Race and Democracy, Dr. Peniel Joseph sits down with Dr. Leonard Moore to discuss race, voting rights, social movements, and American moral identity. They cover a broad range of topics including the spreading of racial hatred in the past two years, the loss of morality in American politics, reinvigorating the […]

A preview of the first episode of Race and Democracy.