Carnegie Mellon University
CAUSE 20th Anniversary Conference

"State of the Field Conference on African American Urban History: Past and Present"

CAUSE 20th Anniversary Conference

October 2-4, 2015

Building upon the research, publications, and public service activities of CAUSE over the past twenty years, we have planned a series of 20th Anniversary activities. To begin the celebration, we are holding a three-day “State of the Field Conference on African American Urban History: Past and Present,” on October 2-4, 2015. Earl Lewis, historian and president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will deliver the keynote address. This conference will bring together specialists on different eras and aspects of black urban history from the transatlantic slave trade through the recent period of deindustrialization.

Conference Photo Collage
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Friday, October 2

Keynote Address
Earl Lewis (President, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation)
"Moving Through and Beyond the Academy: From Norfolk to New York"

Saturday, October 3

Session I

“Rethinking the Relationship between Cities and Social Justice in the 21st Century”

Moderator - Nico Slate (Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University)

Guest Speaker:
Carol Anderson (Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of African American Studies and Chair, Department of African American Studies, Emory University)

“’When the Levees Broke’: A History of Un-Civil Rights in America”

Session II

“Race, Class, and Early American Cities”

Chair: Leslie Harris (Associate Professor of History and African American Studies, Emory University)

Presenters:
Michael Gomez (Professor of History, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University)
“The Relativity of Motion in American Urban Space: Emancipatory Vision and Experience during Slavery”

Emma Hart (Lecturer, University of St. Andrews, School of History)
“Black life in Colonial Charleston: An Atlantic World Perspective”

Leslie Alexander (Associate Professor, Department of African American and African Studies, Ohio State University)
“'We Are A Distinct People': Black Culture and Political Thought in New York City, 1790-1860”

Session III

"Emancipation, the Great Migration, Emergence of the Black Metropolis"

Chair: Clarence Lang (Associate Professor, Department of American Studies, University of Kansas)

Presenters:
Brian Kelly (Reader in U.S. History, Queen’s University)
“‘From the Slaves’ Jubilee to White ‘Redemption’ in the Holy City: Black Life in Charleston, 1865-1900’”

Millington Bergeson-Lockwood (Community Liaison Office Coordinator, US Embassy, Malawi)
“Party, Patronage, and Pride: Black Urban Politics in Reconstruction Era Boston”

Davarian Baldwin (Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies, Trinity College)
“‘Chicago could be the Vienna of American Fascism’: The Political Culture of Black Anti-Fascism before World War II”

Session IV

"Modern Freedom Struggle, Deindustrialization, and New Politics"

Chair: Rhonda Williams (Associate Professor of History, Case Western University)

Presenters:
Marcus A. Hunter (Assistant Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate, Department of African American Studies, University of California-Los Angeles)
“Black Citymakers: How The Philadelphia Negro Changed Urban America”

Donna Murch (Associate Professor of History, State University of New Jersey Rutgers)
“Fortress L.A.: Race, Neoliberalism, and Punishment in the Late 20th Century City”

Kwame Holmes (Assistant Professor, Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado)
"African Americans in Washington D.C. during the Late 20th Century"

Sunday October 4

Special Session

Remembering African American Pittsburgh: Oral History Project

Moderator: Ralph Proctor (Professor of Ethnic and Diversity Studies, Community College of Allegheny County)

Featuring;
Benjamin Houston (Senior Lecturer, 20th Century U.S. History, Newcastle University)
“Race in the Rust Belt: Black Pittsburgh and Narratives of Race Relations in the Deindustrialising Metropolis”