Roundtable on W. E. B. Du Bois' "Black Reconstruction in America" (1935)

I am delighted to have y’all listen to the conversation I had with three of my favorite historians in all the dad-gum world. January 2021 has been a wild one. Not only did we transition from the Trump era to the Biden era, an attempted coup took place in the US Capitol building that attempted to disrupt the transition of power. In a moment of white supremacist terror, W. E. B. Du Bois’ 1935 Black Reconstruction in America: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 was the book I thought appropriate to not only chat about, but see what parallels we can draw from Du Bois’ text to our own era. Along with the process it took to birth Black Reconstruction into the world during the Great Depression AND knee-deep in the Jim Crow era. Welp, I had to ring the A-Team to chat about Du Bois’ gem. The team I assembled consists of Dr. Hilary Green, Dr. Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders, and Dr. Robert Greene II.

Dr. Hilary N. Green is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of Gender and Race Studies and serves as the co-program director of the African American Studies program. She also has a partial appointment in American Studies. Dr. Green’s research and teaching interests include the intersections of race, class, and gender in African American history, the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Civil War Memory, the US South, 19th Century America, and the Black Atlantic.

Dr. Ashleigh Lawrence-Sanders is an Assistant Professor of African American history. She holds a Ph.D. in History from the greatest program in African American History in the dadgum land, Rutgers University, where she concentrated in African American and United States history. Dr. Lawrence-Sanders teaches courses in U.S. history, historical memory, African American history and African American women's history.

Dr. Robert Greene II is Assistant Professor of History at Claflin University. Dr. Greene II’s research interests include African American history, American intellectual history since 1945, and Southern history since 1945. Recently, Dr. Greene II also assumed the Lead Associate Editor position of Black Perspectives, the award-winning academic blog of the African American Intellectual History Society.

I hope y’all enjoy the conversation.

Adam McNeil is a third year Ph.D. in History student at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

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