The public is invited to attend a free reading and discussion to celebrate Ashley Howard, UI assistant professor of history and African American studies, and her new book, Midwest Unrest: 1960s Urban Rebellions and the Black Freedom Movement.
Howard will read a selection from the book, which analyzes the 1960s urban uprisings in the Midwest, grounded in the way race, class, gender, and region played critical and overlapping roles in defining resistance to racialized oppression. She will then join Louise Seamster, UI associate professor of sociology and criminology and African American studies, for a conversation and audience Q&A.
“Ashley Howard confronts head-on the myth that the Midwest is 'too nice for racism.' Her unpacking of the causes of urban uprisings and their impact on current-day race relations will resonate from the Midwest to the Rust Belt and beyond.” — Nikki Brown, author of Private Politics and Public Voices: Black Women’s Activism from World War I to the New Deal
Ashley Howard earned a PhD in history from the University of Illinois. Her research interests include African Americans in the Midwest; the intersection between race, class, and gender; and the global history of racial violence. She is currently researching her second book project which investigates the relationship between anti-Black racial violence, memory, and public history. Dr. Howard's work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, BBC World News Hour, Al Jazeera, Financial Times, Washington Post and NPR. Her "Then the Burnings Began" article is the winner of the 2018 James L. Sellers Memorial Prize.
This Book Matters event is co-sponsored by the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Stanley Museum of Art, and Prairie Lights. Light refreshments will follow the reading.