What role have black women played in the civil rights era and black empowerment in addressing issues of white supremacy? We explore the importance of black women intellectuals, the way in which they have framed the scholarship, the analysis, and policies. [ dur: 34mins. ]

* Ashley Farmer is Associate Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies & History at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Remaking Black Power: How Black Women Transformed an Era and co-editor of New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition. She is also the Co-Editor and Curator of the Black Power Series with Ibram X. Kendi.

Several states have passed legislation barring teaching critical race theory in public schools. Today we explore critical race theory and how race is taught. How should academics proceed in light of the political backlash to teaching about race? [ dur: 22mins. ] This was originally recorded July 21, 2021. This is an excerpt, the complete version can be heard here.

* Utz McKnight is Chair of the Department of Gender and Race Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Race and the Politics of the Exception: Equality, Sovereignty, and American Democracy and Everyday Practice of Race in America: Ambiguous Privilege.

* Laura E. Gómez is Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law. She has taught the Critical Race Studies Program in the law school’s upper-year curriculum. Professor Gómez has co-founded and served as the first co-director of UCLA School of Law’s Critical Race Studies Program. She is the author of Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism and Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race. 2nd ed.

* David Livingstone Smith is Professor of Philosophy at New England University. He is the author of Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave and Exterminate Others, On Inhumanity: Dehumanization and How to Resist It, and the forthcoming Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization.

This program is produced by Maria Armoudian, Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.