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About Brandon Jett

I received my PhD in History from the University of Florida in 2017 and current work as a Professor of History at Florida SouthWestern State College. I am an award-winning scholar, writer, and teacher of American history and crime, violence, and criminal justice in the United States, particularly focusing on the American South. My first book, Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South, came out in July 2021. I've also been engaged with public work and writing over the last year. I've work has been featured in numerous venues, including the Washington Post, Ft. Myers News-Press, and WGCU.

Brandon T. Jett, professor of history at Florida SouthWestern State College, creator of the Lynching in LaBelle Digital History Project, and author of Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South (LSU Press, 2021) and co-editor of Steeped in a Culture of Violence: Murder, Racial Injustice, and Other Violent Crimes in Texas, 1965–2020 (Texas A&M University Press, scheduled Spring 2023). Twitter: @DrBrandonJett1.

Brandon's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Brandon:

American South February 8, 2023

Rural Republican Realignment in the Modern South

The Untold Story

M. V. Hood and Seth C. McKee

Hosted by Brandon Jett
Beginning with the Dixiecrat Revolt of 1948 and extending through the 2020 election cycle, political scientists M.V. Hood III and Seth C. McKee trace the process by which rural white …
American South December 7, 2022

The Life of Elreta Melton Alexander

Activism within the Courts

Virginia L. Summey

Hosted by Brandon Jett
Virginia L. Summey's book The Life of Elreta Melton Alexander: Activism within the Courts (U Georgia Press, 2022) explores the life and contributions of groundbreaking attorney, Elreta Melton Alexander Ralston (1919–98) …
American South November 10, 2022

Scars on the Land

An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South

David Silkenat

Hosted by Brandon Jett
They worked Virginia's tobacco fields, South Carolina's rice marshes, and the Black Belt's cotton plantations. Wherever they lived, enslaved people found their lives indelibly shaped by the Southern environment. By …
American South September 9, 2022

Behind the Big House

Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the U.S. South

Jodi Skipper

Hosted by Brandon Jett
When residents and tourists visit sites of slavery, whose stories are told? All too often the lives of slaveowners are centered, obscuring the lives of enslaved people. Behind the Big …
American South May 31, 2022

Becoming Free, Becoming Black

Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana

Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross

Hosted by Brandon Jett
How did Africans become 'blacks' in the Americas? Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge UP, 2020) tells the story of enslaved and …
American South April 19, 2022

Far-Right Vanguard

The Radical Roots of Modern Conservatism

John S. Huntington

Hosted by Brandon Jett
Donald Trump shocked the nation in 2016 by winning the presidency through an ultraconservative, anti-immigrant platform, but, despite the electoral surprise, Trump's far-right views were not an aberration, nor even …
American South March 17, 2022

The Ballad of Robert Charles

Searching for the New Orleans Riot Of 1900

K. Stephen Prince

Hosted by Brandon Jett
For a brief moment in the summer of 1900, Robert Charles was arguably the most infamous black man in the United States. After an altercation with police on a New …
American South February 15, 2022

Elegy for Mary Turner

An Illustrated Account of a Lynching

Rachel Marie-Crane Williams

Hosted by Brandon Jett
In late May 1918 in Valdosta, Georgia, ten Black men and one Black woman—Mary Turner, eight months pregnant at the time—were lynched and tortured by mobs of white citizens. Through …
American South January 26, 2022

Choctaw Confederates

The American Civil War in Indian Country

Fay A. Yarbrough

Hosted by Brandon Jett
When the Choctaw Nation was forcibly resettled in Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma in the 1830s, it was joined by enslaved Black people—the tribe had owned enslaved Blacks since the …
American South December 8, 2021

Southern Journey

The Migrations of the American South, 1790-2020

Edward L. Ayers

Hosted by Brandon Jett
Taking a wide focus, Southern Journey: The Migrations of the American South, 1790-2020 (LSU Press, 2020) narrates the evolution of southern history from the founding of the nation to the …
American South October 26, 2021

American Atrocity

The Types of Violence in Lynching

Guy Lancaster

Hosted by Brandon Jett
Lynching is often viewed as a narrow form of violence: either the spontaneous act of an angry mob against accused individuals, or a demonstration of white supremacy against an entire …