Public Historians at Work

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Whether asked in class or on Twitter, public historian Dr. Brian Behnken has gotten used to hearing one question, “Why didn’t I know this before?” 

In this episode, Dr. Behnken, Associate Professor of African American and Mexican-American civil rights activism at Iowa State University, talks with Dr. Monica Perales about the hunger of public audiences for more contextualization of contemporary issues. Through their conversation recorded on October 1, 2020, we learn about the challenges and opportunities for historians when they engage in public-facing scholarship – whether correcting problematic narratives about Aunt Jemima or exploring the long legacy of communities of color creatively organizing against police injustice. Dr. Behnken explains how this kind of work renewed his own research, in particular how the past can be mined for a century of community mobilization, concrete solutions, and coalition building in order to achieve real reform in the present.

Learn more:
https://history.iastate.edu/directory/brian-d-behnken/
Twitter @HistoryBrian

The Center for Public History at the University of Houston. https://uh.edu/class/cph