people like charles davenport, the founder of the eugenics records office. i look to a lot of african-american intellectuals. people like w.e.b. dubois, and william montague cobb, an anatomy professor at howard university and the first black physical anthropologist. he uses a lot of medical and anthropological knowledge to make arguments about what racial difference really does and does not do and how things like eugenics can be used to mobilize those for a greater good. susan: tell me about w.e.b dubois. ms. nurridin: he is interested in thinking about how the collective race can be improved on a social level through education and on a biological level. it is usually framed as a kind of respectability politics in terms of education and religion and moral improvement. there is a biological underpinning about who is actually fit enough to constitute this talent population. i have a number of interesting little nuggets from his work. one was an article from margaret sanger's birth-control review where he published in a special issue thousand titled "a negro nu