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Historian Peniel E. Joseph, joined in conversation by Laurence Ralph, presents "Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution." Registration requested, not required.
About the Book (from the publisher):
In "Freedom Season," acclaimed historian Peniel E. Joseph offers a stirring narrative history of 1963, marking it as the defining year of the Black freedom struggle—a year when America faced a deluge of political strife and violence and emerged transformed.
Nineteen sixty-three opened with the centenary of the Emancipation Proclamation and ended with America in a state of mourning. The months in between brought waves of racial terror, mass protest, and police repression that shocked the world, inspired radicals and reformers, and forced the hands of moderate legislators. By year’s end the murders of John F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, and four Black girls at a church in Alabama left the nation determined to imagine a new way forward. Alongside the stories of historical giants like James Baldwin and Martin Luther King Jr., Joseph uplifts the perspectives of less celebrated leaders like playwright Lorraine Hansberry and activist Gloria Richardson.
Over one heartbreakingly tumultuous year, America unraveled and remade itself as the world looked on. "Freedom Season" shows how the upheavals of 1963 planted the seeds for watershed civil rights legislation and renewed hope in the promise and possibility of freedom.
In Conversation:
Peniel Joseph holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He is also the founding director of the LBJ School's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). His career focus has been on "Black Power Studies," which encompasses interdisciplinary fields such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies, and political science. Prior to joining the UT faculty, Dr. Joseph was a professor at Tufts University, where he founded the school's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy to promote engaged research and scholarship focused on the ways issues of race and democracy affect people's lives. In addition to being a frequent commentator on issues of race, democracy and civil rights, Dr. Joseph has previously written "The Sword and the Shield: The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr." He also wrote the award-winning books "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America" and "Dark Days, Bright Nights: From Black Power to Barack Obama." His book "Stokely: A Life" has been called the definitive biography of Stokely Carmichael, the man who popularized the phrase "Black Power." Included among Joseph's other book credits is the editing of "The Black Power Movement: Rethinking the Civil Rights-Black Power Era" and "Neighborhood Rebels: Black Power at the Local Level."
Laurence Ralph is a professor of Anthropology at Princeton University and previously a professor at Harvard University for nearly a decade. Ralph earned his Ph.D. and Masters of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgia Institute of Technology. His research explores how police abuse, mass incarceration, and the drug trade make disease, disability, and premature death seem natural for urban residents of color, who are often seen as disposable. His first book "Renegade Dreams" (University of Chicago Press, 2014), received the C Wright Mills Award. His second book, "The Torture Letters" (University of Chicago Press, 2020), explores a decades-long scandal in which hundreds of Black men were tortured in police custody. He has received fellowships and grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the National Research Council of the National Academies. His writing has been featured in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Chicago Review of Books, Boston Review, and Foreign Affairs.
Presented in partnership with the Princeton Theological Seminary and with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this programming do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
AGE GROUP: | Adults |
EVENT TYPE: | Humanities | Author Talks | *Registration Requested |
TAGS: | NEH | Fall25Authors |
