Race and Democracy

Dr. Don Carleton is the founding director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, which was organized in 1991. Prior to the creation of the Briscoe Center, he served from October 1975 through November 1979 as founding director of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center (HMRC), an urban history archives […]

Sudhir Hazareesingh FBA (18 October 1961) is a British-Mauritian historian. He has been a fellow and Tutor in Politics at Balliol College, Oxford since 1990. Most of his work relates to modern political history from 1850; including the history of contemporary France as well as Napoleon, the Republic and Charles de Gaulle. Hazareesingh is the […]

Ken Burns calls Jonathan Eig a “master storyteller.” Joyce Carol Oates calls his book, Ali: A Life, “an epic of a biography.” Eig is the author of five books, three of them New York Times best sellers. He was born in Brooklyn and graduated from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. A former staff writer for […]

Dr. Maurice Hobson is an Associate Professor of African American Studies and Historian at Georgia State University. He earned the Ph. D. degree in History, focusing in African American History and 20th Century U.S. History from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests are grounded in the fields of African American history, 20th Century […]

Lisa B. Thompson is professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of three books, Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class(University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French Inc., 2012), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three […]

Paul Stekler is a nationally recognized documentary filmmaker whose critically praised and award-winning work includes George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire; Last Man Standing: Politics, Texas Style; Vote for Me: Politics in America, a four-hour PBS special about grassroots electoral politics; two segments of the Eyes on the Prize II series on the history of...

Keisha N. Blain is an American historian and writer. She is an Associate professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh and President of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS). She is “one of the most innovative and influential young historians of her generation.”Blain is one of the nation’s leading scholars of African American […]

Sukyi manages the Square One Project’s Roundtable on the Future of Justice Policy, and draws together academics, advocates, community leaders, and practitioners in three-day convenings to drive understanding and innovation in criminal justice reform.  Sukyi hails from Austin, Texas, where she serves as the Board Chair at Austin Justice Coalition, a black-led grassroots organization...

Ron Kirk is Senior Of Counsel in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Dallas and Washington, D.C. offices. He is Co-Chair of the International Trade Practice Group and a member of the Sports Law, Public Policy, Crisis Management, and Private Equity Practice Groups. Ambassador Kirk focuses on providing strategic advice to companies with global interests. Prior to joining the firm...

Mark K. Updegrove is the president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation. From 2009 to 2017, he was the director of the LBJ Presidential Library where, he hosted the Civil Rights Summit in 2014, which included Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, and oversaw a major renovation of the Library’s core […]

Eddie S. Glaude Jr. is a scholar who speaks to the black and blue in America. His most well-known books, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, take a wide look at black communities and reveal complexities, vulnerabilities, and opportunities for […]

Sonya Douglass Horsford currently serves as Associate Professor of Education Leadership in the Department of Organization and Leadership at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on the politics of race in education leadership, policy, and reform. She is the Founding Director of the Black Education Research Collective (BERC) and Co-Director of the Urban Education […]

Rebecca Campbell has served as chief executive of the Austin Film Society since 1998. Prior to joining AFS, she spent 12 years in the nonprofit sector, serving as Executive Director of two statewide California organizations, following which she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Video and Film Production from the University of Texas […]

Laurence Ralph is a Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. He earned both a Ph. D. and also a Master of Arts degree in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and a Bachelor of Science degree from Georgia Institute of Technology where he majored in History, Technology, and Society. Laurence has published articles on these topics […]

A prominent leader in the national movement to build positive, inclusive, and inspiring humanist communities, Greg M. Epstein has served the country’s rapidly growing population of non-religious people for nearly two decades. Described as a “godfather to the [humanist] movement” by The New York Times Magazine in recognition of his efforts, Epstein was also named […]

Mark Whitaker spent three decades as a reporter, writer, and editor for Newsweek Magazine and in 1999 became the first African-American to lead a national newsweekly. In 2007, he joined NBC News and the following year replaced the late Tim Russert as Washington Bureau Chief. In 2011, Mark was appointed Managing Editor of CNN Worldwide, […]

Van Lathan is an established host and media personality from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He can be heard weekly on “The Red Pill” podcast, which garners over 50,000 listeners per episode, as well as on the podcast Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay. Van’s passion for sports, entertainment, and news comes across in his reporting and insightful […]

Julian Zelizer is a professor in political history at Princeton University, frequent political commentator, and author of over 900 op-eds and books covering American political history. After obtaining his Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University, Zelizer went on to write for The Atlantic and work as a weekly columnist at CNN. He has twice won the […]

Trymaine Lee is a Pulitzer Prize and Emmy award-winning journalist. Having reported for both The New York Times and Huffington Post, Trymaine currently works as a national reporter for the digital arm of MSNBC. He has been recognized for his work covering social justice issues, including the case of Trayvon Martin in 2012, for which […]

Dr. Eric Cervini is an award-winning historian of LGBTQ+ politics and culture. He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and received his Ph. D. in history from the University of Cambridge, where he was a Gates Scholar. As an authority on 1960s gay activism, Cervini serves on the Board of Directors of the Harvard Gender and […]

Dr. Karma Chávez is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies. Her scholarship is informed by queer of color theory and women of color feminism and analyzes social movement building, activist rhetoric, and coalitional politics. Dr. Chávez’s research explores the rhetorical practices and coalitions of […]

Robert Martin Seda-Schreiber is a chief activist of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice. Robert forged New Jersey’s first middle school gay-straight alliance, was honored as New Jersey’s State Champion of Equality, served as a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholar to Japan, received two Senate proclamations recognizing his service to the community, and was named […]

James G. Basker is President of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, and The Richard Gilder Professor of Literary History at Barnard College, Columbia University. Educated at Harvard College, Cambridge University, and (as a Rhodes Scholar) at Oxford University, Basker taught at Harvard for seven years before coming to Barnard. His scholarly work spans […]

Mark Atwood Lawrence is Associate Professor of History, Distinguished Fellow at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, and Director of Graduate Studies at the Clements Center for National Security at The University of Texas at Austin. He received his B.A. from Stanford University in 1988 and his doctorate from Yale in […]

Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading intellectual voices in the country. He is currently the host of BET News and a political contributor for CNN. An award-winning journalist, Dr. Hill has received numerous prestigious awards from the National Association of Black Journalists, GLAAD, and the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. […]