Unpacking 1619 - A Heights Libraries Podcast

Leoandra Onnie Rogers, Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University, discusses her article, “Exploring Whether and How Black and White Parents Talk with Their Children about Race: M(ai)cro Race Conversations About Black Lives Matter.” which presents the results of an online survey conducted in 2020-2021. Professor Rogers details the ways in which white and Black parents […]

Professor Deirdre Cooper Owens discusses her book, Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology, which traces the origins of American reproductive health to slave hospitals. As white doctors expanded their practices onto plantations, quickly pregnancy and birth became the focus of their practices. Dr. James Marion Sims with other nineteenth-century gynecologists performed […]

Professor Robin Bernstein discusses her book, Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder that Shook America’s Original Prison For Profit. Auburn Prison in Upstate New York was designed to be a factory prison, incorporating the area’s major industry into its walls. Through harsh conditions, solitary and silent confinement, and constant violence, the inmates’ lives were desolate ones of […]

Professor Jocelyn Simonson talks about her book, Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration. Beginning with a close look at the ideological meaning behind calling the prosecution, “The People,” Prof. Simonson points out how the criminal justice systems defines “community.” By looking at several ways activists and volunteers engage in organized […]

Antonia Hylton discusses her book, Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum. Ms. Hylton’s extensive research into Crownsville Hospital in Maryland, a segregated asylum that was both hospital and prison, serves as physical example of racist systems and black resistance. Tracing the history of Crownsville was difficult since so many of the official […]

Professor Stephen Kenny discusses his article, “A Dictate of Both Interest and Mercy”: Slave Hospitals in the Antebellum South.” Beginning on the shores of West Africa, White doctors began to systematize racialized medicine in the service of slavery. Establishing institutions of idealized models of slave care, the story of slave hospitals became a self-serving lie […]

Professor Sang Kil talks about how “all lives matter” (ALM) has advanced Whiteness in the news. Using critical race theory’s critique of neoliberalism’s use of race-neutral racism, Professor Kil, discusses how “All Lives Matter” works to undermine the civil rights meaning of Black Lives Matter by denying its central critique. Blue Lives Matter, an offshoot […]

Professor Diane Negra discusses her most recent scholarship which investigates Irish identity in the United States. She begins with the election of John F. Kennedy with a sense of hopefulness which progressed through the 1980s and 1990s with an explosion of interest in all things Irish. But beginning in the 2000s, Professor Negra locates a […]

Professor Painter discusses her book, THE HISTORY OF WHITE PEOPLE. Prof. Painter begins with discussing just what it means to be “white” and how ideas of whiteness developed using Ancient Greek and Roman sources. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s influence is explored before delving into eugenics, anti-Semitism, and Irish Immigration. Nell Irvin Painter is the award-winning author […]

Dr. Allison Skinner-Dorkenoo discusses her article, “How Microaggressions Reinforce and Perpetuate Systemic Racism in the United States.” She defines what microaggressions are and how they support White superiority. Through subtle and slight processes microaggressions protect and reinforce the “othering” of people of color with environmental exclusions, treating people of color as second class, and promoting […]

Professor Leslie Picca discusses her work, Two-Faced Racism: Whites in the Backstage and Frontstage, which examines the racial attitudes and behaviors exhibited by whites in private versus public settings. Prof. Picca explains how simple racial jokes work to maintain dominant racism while offering up an easy out for racists. The creation of these white safe […]

Journalist Laura Meckler of the Washington Post discusses her book, Dream Town: Shaker Heights and the Quest for Racial Equity. Beginning with a historical overview of the Cleveland suburb and its uncanny ability to propel itself into the national spotlight, Ms. Meckler discusses how the suburb fought segregation and racial covenants to become one of […]

Professor Marquis Bey discusses their book, BLACK TRANS FEMINISM in which they argue that how we define, label, and identify ourselves can be a way to embrace freedom and the liberated possible. First looking at how we are captured by systems and stereotypes when we see ourselves as defined by our race, gender, or sexuality, […]

Professor Samantha Pinto discusses her book, Infamous Bodies: Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights. Using the idea of “vulnerability” as a touchstone to explain the celebrity of Sally Hemings and Sarah “the Hottentot Venus” Baartman, Prof. Pinto describes how each woman’s agency is complicated by dominant systems of coercion and violence. Sally […]

Professor Reséndez discusses his book, The Other Slavery: The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America. Prof. Reséndez discusses pre-Colonial enslavement among the native people of North America and the Caribbean. How the Spanish invasion changed native societies, altered slavery, and decimated entire populations. Also discussed is how the abolitionists movement and Civil War Amendments […]

Professor Waite discusses his book, West of Slavery: the Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire. He explains his thesis that the Southern Slave States had ambitions and plans to extend slavery across the West. Prof. Waite explains how railroads, camels, and the hope for new international markets all played a part in the coming of […]

Professor Nakia Parker discusses her article, “Regarded as an Appendage of His Family: Slavery, Family, and the Law in Indian Territory.” Chattel slavery spread into the Chickasaw Nation, in part, due to the “Civilization Program.” How the Chickasaw legalized ownership and kinship is the focus of our discussion. Nakia D. Parker is an Assistant Professor […]

Professor Barbara Krauthamer discusses her book, Black Slaves, Indian Masters, which examines the role of slavery in the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations. She explores the tensions brought these Native American tribes by missionaries, trade, and the “civilizing” project of Euro-Americans. The role of slavery as a form of assimilation which Native Americans hoped would enrich […]

Professor Newell discusses her book, Brethren by Nature: New England Indians, Colonists, and the Origins of American Slavery, which explores the enslavement of Indians by the English Colonists in New England. Massachusetts became the first English colony to legalize slavery in 1641, and the colonists’ desire for slaves shaped the major New England Indian wars, […]

Manisha Sinha is the Draper Chair in American History at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D from Columbia University where her dissertation was nominated for the Bancroft prize. She taught at the University of Massachusetts for over twenty years where she was awarded the Chancellor’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed on faculty. She […]

Professor Erin Thompson discusses her book, “Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of America’s Public Monuments.” Prof. Thompson explains the role of Confederate monuments, what they symbolize, and to whom their message is aimed. The design of the “parade stance” figure’s rise to monument dominance provides insight into the submissive posture of white defender was […]

Thomas Craemer obtained a political science doctorate in 2001 from the University of Tuebingen in his native Germany, and a PhD from Stony Brook University, New York, in 2005. He teaches at the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy. His experience of growing up in post-World-War II Germany motivated his research on implicit racial […]

Reginald L. Bell is a Professor of Management in the College of Business at Prairie View A&M University. Bell received his PhD in Business Education from the University of Missouri at Columbia. Bell writes mostly in the management communication area, which is his research focus. Bell has more than 80 articles published in peer reviewed […]

Dr. Michael Conklin is the Powell Endowed Professor of Business Law at Angelo State University. He received his JD from Washburn School of Law, MBA from Oklahoma City University, Postgraduate Certificate in International Business Law from University of London, and Masters in Philosophy of Religion from Biola University. He has published in over fifty journals […]

Professor Gerald Horne discusses his book, The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. Prof. Horne explains his thesis that religion, which supported so much colonial expansion, gave way to race, specifically whiteness, as a way of organizing conquest. Prof. Horne explores the […]

Hasan Jeffries discusses his book Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt. We talk about what made this rural Alabama County such an important and complicated location in the Civil Rights struggle. How school desegregation and voting registration was still accomplished in the shadow of some of the era’s worst white […]

In Diversity Inc.: The Failed Promise of a Billion-Dollar Business Pamela Newkirk exposes the decades-old practices and attitudes that have made diversity a lucrative business while they fail to realize diversity. We discussed the history of exclusion, the role of Presidents Johnson and Reagan, and why higher education is such a battleground for Diversity, Equity, […]

We begin with the shocking history of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Law which sought to identify citizens “passing” as white and how this law served to discipline Segregationist ideologies. Next, we look into how women found racist political power in local school boards, PTA, and other organizations to define the story of Jim Crow and censor […]

John Day looks at the congressional statement drafted and signed by 99 congressmen in response to Brown V. Board of Education. The statement, nicknamed the Southern Manifesto, accomplished both the white supremacist’s goal of blocking Civil Rights while proving tempered enough to appease a moderate’s political fears. This often forgotten document is restored to his […]

Professor Krugler discusses his book, 1919: the Year of Racial Violence and How African Americans Fought Back. We specifically focus on Chicago and Knoxville riots with an eye on how Black World War I veterans factored into de-escalating the White mobs.

Richard Rothstein discusses his book The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, which recovers a forgotten history of how federal, state, and local policy explicitly segregated metropolitan areas nationwide, creating racially homogenous neighborhoods in patterns that violate the Constitution and require remediation.

Kelsey Klotz is a lecturer at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her PhD in Musicology with a certificate in American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis in 2016. Her research focuses on the intersection of race and sound in 1950s and 1960s American musical culture, with a particular focus on […]

Professor of Law at Harvard Law School Alexandra Natapoff discusses her book, Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent and Makes America More Unequal.

Vida Johnson is an Associate Professor at Georgetown Law. She discusses her article, “Bias in Blue: Instructing Jurors to Consider the Testimony of Police Officer Witnesses with Caution”.

The eighth amendment of the U.S. Constitution states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” This episode kicks off a 3-part series that investigates this amendment, beginning with a conversation with Alex Reinert. He discusses his article, “Reconceptualizing the 8th Amendment: Slaves, prisoners, and ‘Cruel and […]

Jonathan Daniel Wells is a professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He discusses his book, Blind No More: African American Resistance, Free-Soil Politics, and the Coming of the Civil War and the Fugitive Slave Law.

Paul Finkelman is a chancellor and distinguished professor of history at Gratz College. He discusses his book, Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court, which explores the legacy of Justice John Marshall.

Cullen Sweeney, the Chief Public Defender for Cuyahoga County, discusses the complicated relationship between race and the criminal justice system.

Ronnie A Dunn is the executive director of the Diversity Institute at Cleveland State University. He shares his work on the article, “Racial Profiling: A Persistent Civil Rights Challenge Even in the Twenty First Century.”

Plain Dealer reporters Cameron Fields and Hanna Drown discuss their work on an ongoing series featuring Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Almira Elementary School.

Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University Eric Foner discusses his book The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution. By looking at the history of the debates around each Post-War Amendment, Professor Foner examines how each amendment sought to permanently end slavery and reconstitute the nation.

Steve Luxenberg is an associate editor at The Washington Post and an award-winning author. He discusses his book, Separate: The Story of Plessy v. Ferguson, and America’s Journey from Slavery to Segregation.

University of Utah professor of history Eric Herschthal is the author of the article The Science of Antislavery in the Early Republic: The Case of Dr. Benjamin Rush. He discusses how the medical theories of Dr. Rush informed his advocacy for the American Revolution and the end of American Slavery.

Rana Hogarth, Associate Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, discusses the intersections of slavery and medicine.

Ibrahim K. Sundiata, Emeritus Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Brandeis University, discusses his work on a collection of essays analyzing The 1619 Project.

Randolph McLaughlin, Professor of Law at the Pace University Elisabeth Haub School of Law, discusses his article, “The Birth of a Nation: A Study of Slavery in Seventeenth Century Virginia.”

Professor Jennifer Morgan teaches History in the department of Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University where she also serves as Chair. She discusses her article, “Partus Sequitur Ventrem: Law, Race, and Reproduction in Colonial Slavery.”

Trevor Burnard, Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull, discusses the Royal African Company and the rise of the Jamaican plantation.

Professor Laura Bieger discusses the purpose, successes, and failures of the 1619 Project and examines how the essay, design choices, and other associated media work together to create a unique reading experience that leads readers toward social engagement.

Dr. Patricia Banks is co-editor-in-chief of Poetics and chair and professor in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College. We discuss her book, Black Culture Inc., which examines the complicated practice of corporate support and giving to Black museums, cultural events, and music festivals.