This work uncovers the global history of the Black Panther Party, a key post-civil rights organization, and shows how an international approach broadens and changes our understanding of African American history.
Walter A. Rodney: a promise of revolution
"The African American struggle for civil rights in the twentieth century is one of the most important stories in American history. Yohuru Williams has synthesized the complex history of this period into a clear and compelling narrative. Considering both the Civil Rights and Blac…
This thesis is a history of the Boston Black United Front’s (BBUF) activities combatting the growing carceral state in Massachusetts in the late 1960s and early 1970s.The BBUF was an “umbrella” organization within Boston’s Black community during the Black Power era and was parti…
“The Right to Tell: Listening Practices, Race and Recordings, 1959-1978,” is a multidisciplinary examination of LP recordings and their role in the formation of racial and national listening practices. In order to do so, I look at the protocols and structures of perception and d…
This dissertation traces the full intellectual history of the Third World Turn: when theorists and activists in the United States began to look to liberation movements within the colonized and formerly colonized nations of the ‘Third World’ in search of models for political, soc…
Between 1964 and 1968, protests against anti-Black racism and police violence transformed cities across the United States. Against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and the emergent Black Power movement, these so-called “race riots” elicited a diverse groundswell of poli…