today's roundtable title is taken from w.e.b. dubois's landmark book, the souls black folk. and in this regard, today's speakers will discuss how their work to the complex experiences of black people. the african diaspora through fiction, drama and essay each featured here today will illustrate the ways in which his or her work speak to the complex experiences of black people in literature and i know we're at the 16th national black writers conference, but the speakers you're about to listen to are not living by the pen. you'll witnessing the unraveling of whitewashed history through the eyes of historians like dolan valdez, whose work plants its palms into american soil and pulls out narratives that are imagined and true all at once. you'll be looking at executive producers like jelani cobb, whose influence ranges from marvel's luke cage, the newly released lincoln's dilemma. you'll be listening to sci and fantasy tv comic book connoisseur like marlon james, whose works will be splashing our screens in the coming years. and we'll and that will be no surprise to any of us. y

he is one of the founding faculty of the w.e.b. dubois department of african-american studies here at umass amherst. i'm going to have just have you speak and turn. and in the order i was they introduce us that you were introduced and then we'll just move through and we'll hold the questions for the end of the talk. so carla kaplan. thank you. and unfortunately can't remove my mask. but fortunately i have a very big i think they can hear me in oklahoma no problem in the back right. yeah unfortunately i also have a neurological problem and i to ask that no one use a flash if i if use a flash you have to put me up at your. house for four days because i lose my sight and then i am yours. if you flash in my eyes you own me and you have to feed me. okay. like to thank greg oates brian ogilvie here. donoghue, amy flug, stephanie austin, julie martel, harold holzer and my fellow panelists. it's an honor be invited to this intimate occasion and i never had the opportunity to meet stephen oates. but i've come to feel from reading his work and meet

>> it is rooted in the black narrative, going back to w.e.b. dubois and booker t.t to tell but if you look, none of these other black cities have like the atlanta university center. >> four hbcus, historically black college university, mo morris, spellman, morehouse, so people who grew up here, to see not only one black school, but four black universities. >> yeah, so it is a post secondary education okay, chicago, detroit, they don't have the morehouse, spelman thing and i think along with the consistent black mayors, that became the attraction. >> the fact that atlanta has had black mayors for 40 some odd years, has that made a significant impact on the city? >> most definitely. the mayor that set everything off, mayor jackson, he put forth those policies and took that risk, he understand that the police chief, the police force, superintendent, teachers, everything that the public sector could touch, that that also had to be our mission, like what he saw, he couldn't get buy in from the working class people in those sectors, that this was the mission. >> everybod

. >> so true and i think it reminds me of wb w.e.b. dubois when he talksabout the talented ted . and the work of men like him and other elite blacks, want to cultivate that talent. later in his life, he was challenged and he came to understand that it wasn't just about creating a coterie of elite blacks. but it was about creating an environment so that the other 90 percent could drive. and to equip themselves with the ability to lift others up . rather than simply building leadership along the talented tense but then engage with the broader white elite community. and so in some ways he was in talking about the souls of black folks engaging him in his own excavation ideas that were based on a like this system and the higher education system which of course he went to harvard like you and was able to review and in his own framework as he grew older and wiser was challenged. >> that's what professor gates will teach us about the boy as well as about franklin is he wasn't always perfect. what he did was he reflected on got this wrong just like franklin said i got the biggest thing sl

but yeah, you barack obama came out of columbia, w.e.b. dubois was the first black person to get a psc from harvard university. i forgot mae jemison went. but yeah, after he went to fish, after he went office. of course yeah yeah that's why i said well yes so historically black colleges as well as predominately colleges have been educating black for years. but i the historically black colleges because for close to 100 years that's the only place we could have gone to college. that's why i went to undergraduate at a historically black college. so we can't underestimate how important these institutions are, which is why i went to west today and i thought it was important that if i'm going to be a national, even for a couple of hours that i visited. your second question, more distinguished young's role, the civil rights movement. what did he do that the martin luther king couldn't do? yeah, well, mean he carried if he carried on martin luther king's legacy in a different way. like, as i mentioned, he was able to go into politics. he was able to run

foundation, the national endowment for humanity, the mcdowell colony, the vermont arts council and w.e.b. dubois institute at harvard university. and andrew carnegie fellow emily bernard lives with her family in vermont. please join me in welcoming emily bernard to our roundtable today. >> thank you for the introduction and thank you for letting me be here today. i'm glad to be here. i couldn't ask for more brilliant and wonderful colleagues than the ones i'm sharing this panel with today so it'sa pleasure . i received the notice about this topic and my thoughts immediately went as our ideal first in life and thinking about a lot lately in no small part because of the passing of our beloved and brilliant collie valerie boyd who is the author of brilliant wonderful biography of kirsten that eyesight so often in my work and i'm writing about person for my book project which is a series of biographies about black women where i want to in some ways trouble or complicate conventional ideas about success, women who literally made a way out of no way and encountered real obstacles in their ambition and

african americans at the turn of the last century, particularly the so-called colored elite, or w.e.b. dubois, as talented, tells nanowrimo as angelina grimm, the younger one was called, was the granddaughter of both the enslaved and the enslaver. yet she was also the grandniece of two of antebellum america's most famous white women. sarah grimm key and angelina grimm key weld were two of 13 children born to one of the wealthiest and most politically influential slaveholding families in the south. lowcountry. during the 1830 or so, the goes the sisters earned acclaim amongst new england's anti-slavery for daring to speak publicly against. quote, the peculiar institution in which they'd been raised. in fact, sarah's 1838 treatise letters on the only equality of the sexes and angelina's 1836 pamphlet, an appeal to the christian women of the south. both of those became canonical in the anti-slavery and women's rights movement in 1838, after nearly a year of touring the north, speaking on the duties of white women in public reform, angelina graham became the first american born woman to speak bef

a very prominent african-american scholar, biographer of w.e.b. dubois, one of the, one of the best critical examinations of wilson's record on race that i've read. i think still probably the best certainly in that, in that small space. we've got a couple comments just from the chat responding to this idea of otherness as sort of a human -- [laughter] sort of a universal human if itfall -- pitfall and how it is interesting that wilson not only appointed the first jewish supreme court justice and took a lot of heat for it -- that would be louis brandeis -- also appointed the first jewish faculty and catholic faculty to princeton at a time when that place was almost as hostile to those two types of people as to african-americans. but then again, was not willing to go so far as to get behind and support the application of black students to princeton. his excuse was that, you know, this is a place where it's kind of a finishing school for southern white gentlemen, and you're probably not going to like it here. well, he could have said the same thing to a jew

foundation, the national endowment for the humanities, the macdowell colony, the arts council, and the w.e.b. dubois institute at university. a 2020 andrew carnegie fellow, emily barnard, lives her family in vermont. so please join me in welcoming emily bernhardt to our roundtable today. thank you so much, dr. word for that introduction and thank you for making it possible for me to be here today. i'm thrilled to be here. i couldn't ask for more. brilliant and wonderful colleagues than the colleagues. i'm sharing this panel with today. so it's a real pleasure. when i received the notice about this topic, my thoughts immediately went to zora neale hurston, who i've been thinking about a lot lately. not in no small part because of the recent passing. our beloved and brilliant colleague valerie boyd, who's the author of a brilliant, wonderful biography of hurston that i consult often in my work and i'm writing hurston for my upcoming book project, which is a series of biographies about black women where i want to in some trouble or complicate conventional ideas about success. women who literally made a

what i found when you had the naacp and w.e.b. dubois saying the same thing a generation earlier. so what could. that level of community amnesia as if macomb was the first one to say it and that's where i found the power of the cold war andol the power of anti-communim that defined human rights the right to health care the right to education the right to housing as communistic. those are the things the soviets want and if you are real patriot you wantnt that. and how those witchhunts were systematically just targeting african-americans and african-american organizations that worked were fine for this human rights platform to the point where it became safer to argue on a platform of civil rights and safer doesn't mean safe because we know the violence that rained down on f folks. r we are fighting for civil rights so became politically safer to be able to argue on the civil rights platform that all we want is whatt is in the bill of rights. what could be more american than the bill of rights? then to talk about the right to housing, the right to health care come to the right to lei

. >> dubois. >> w.e.b. duboisom yeah. and on booker t. washington side to economically advance to ownership in and that. chains like economic power were as dubois was more political power in protecting the right to vote inee protest and all those things and of course there were other things i disagreed on. jay-z advocates on what people can do to save wealth and issues especially with an african-american communities along the lines of class and colin kaepernick provides a political movement and i'm curious to hear your thoughts and your analogies are other ways of thinking that the strategies of people conceptualize the differences? >> i would say first and foremostro dubois has been wrony been proven right by history in the booker t. washington model of put down your pockets where you're standing and go where you are. that can benefit a small minority of people. doesn't do anything for the masses or theg population. it might segment a small group to enjoy the of the system thate we live in but it's not going to do anything and it's actual

african americans at the turn of the last century, particularly the so-called colored elite, or w.e.b. dubois as talented, tells nanowrimo as angelina grimm, the younger one was called, was the granddaughter of both the enslaved and the enslaver. yet she was also the grandniece of two of antebellum america's most famous white women. sarah grimm key and angelina grimm key weld were two of 13 children born to one of the wealthiest and most politically influential slaveholding families in the south. lowcountry. during the 1830 or so, the goes the sisters earned acclaim amongst new england's anti-slavery for daring to speak publicly against. quote, the peculiar institution in which they'd been raised. in fact, sarah's 1838 treatise letters on the only equality of the sexes and angelina's 1836 pamphlet, an appeal to the christian women of the south. both of those became canonical in the anti-slavery and women's rights movement in 1838, after nearly a year of touring the north, speaking on the duties of white women in public reform, angelina graham became the first american born woman to speak befo

his papers will join many of the other esteemed that we have in this research center, including w.e.b. dubois, horace bond and daniel ellsberg. we thank the oates family for their trust and partnership. and once again, thank you, everyone, for joining us. as we celebrate the distinguished life and legacy of stephen. thank you. great. thank you. chancellor swami, for those gracious remarks. i'd now like to invite a greg oates and aaron rubinstein to just say a few remarks about professor oates. his papers. well, to follow is difficult as it is. chancellor swami is really exciting announcement about placement of stephen oates papers with the special collections at umass at the umass amherst libraries. i and i know i am representing the entire in saying that this is incredible opportunity for us as you'll see over the course of the day, professor oates had a profound impact on. so many historians and so many lovers history and so many who have been affected by learning the history of the events of the many areas that that professor oates covered. but i think what's particular vital and important