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About James West

Historian of race, media and business in the modern United States and Black diaspora. Author of "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (Illinois, 2020), "A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago" (Illinois, 2022), "Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr. (Massachusetts, 2022).

James West is a historian of race, media and business in the modern United States and Black diaspora. Author of "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (Illinois, 2020), "A House for the Struggle: The Black Press and the Built Environment in Chicago" (Illinois, 2022), "Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr. (Massachusetts, 2022).

James's website

NBN Episodes hosted by James:

African American Studies November 7, 2022

Dream Books and Gamblers

Black Women's Work in Chicago's Policy Game

Elizabeth Schroeder Schlabach

Hosted by James West
Ubiquitous illegal lotteries known as policy flourished in Chicago's Black community during the overlapping waves of the Great Migration. Policy "queens" owned stakes in lucrative operations while women writers and …
American Studies August 5, 2022

Living the Dream

The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Daniel T. Fleming

Hosted by James West
Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (UNC Press, 2022) tells the history behind the establishment of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the battle …
African American Studies January 31, 2022

Pushing Cool

Big Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold Story of the Menthol Cigarette

Keith Wailoo

Hosted by James West
Police put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold for selling cigarettes on a New York City street corner. George Floyd was killed by police outside a store in Minneapolis known …
African American Studies September 10, 2021

The Life and Times of Louis Lomax

The Art of Deliberate Disunity

Thomas Aiello

Hosted by James West
In The Life and Times of Louis Lomax: The Art of Deliberate Disunity (Duke University Press, 2021), Thomas Aiello traces the complicated and fascinating life of a pioneering Black journalist and media personality. A …
American Studies August 18, 2021

Watergate's Forgotten Hero

Frank Wills, Night Watchman

Adam Henig

Hosted by James West
In his new book, Watergate's Forgotten Hero: Frank Wills, Night-Watchman (McFarland & Co., 2021), Adam Henig sheds new light on a widely forgotten but vital actor in the Watergate saga: the twenty-four-year-old security guard …
African American Studies January 8, 2021

The Scholar and the Struggle

Lawrence Reddick's Crusade for Black History and Black Power

David A. Varel

Hosted by James West
One of the most notable African American intellectuals of his generation, Lawrence Reddick helped to spearhead the early Black history movement, served as the second curator of the Schomburg Library …
African American Studies November 9, 2020

That Middle World

Race, Performance, and the Politics of Passing

Julia S. Charles

Hosted by James West
In this chronologically and thematically ambitious study of racial passing literature, Julia Charles highlights how mixed-race subjects invent cultural spaces for themselves—a place she terms that middle world. Charles, an …
American Studies September 2, 2020

Ten Days in Harlem

Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s

Simon Hall

Hosted by James West
In his new book Ten Days in Harlem: Fidel Castro and the Making of the 1960s (Faber, 2020), Simon Hall, a Professor of Modern History at the University of Leeds …
American Studies August 13, 2020

Troublemakers

Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the Lens of Art Shay

Erik Gellman

Hosted by James West
James West speaks with Erik Gellman, an associate professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, about his new book Troublemakers: Chicago Freedom Struggles Through the …
African American Studies July 15, 2020

Louis Austin and the Carolina Times

A Life in the Long Black Freedom Struggle

Jerry Gershenhorn

Hosted by James West
James West speaks with Jerry Gershenhorn, Julius L. Chambers Professor of History at North Carolina Central University, about Louis Austin and the Carolina Times: A Life in the Long Black …
African American Studies June 11, 2020

Free The Land

The Republic of New Afrika and the Pursuit of a Black Nation-State

Edward Onaci

Hosted by James West
On March 31, 1968, over 500 Black nationalists convened in Detroit to begin the process of securing independence from the United States. Many concluded that Black Americans' best-remaining hope for …
African American Studies October 30, 2019

The Fire Is Upon Us

James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America

Nicholas Buccola

Hosted by James West
Nicholas Buccola’s new book, The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton University Press, 2019), uses the iconic debate …
American Studies October 23, 2019

Represented

The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined American Citizenship

Brenna Wynn Greer

Hosted by James West
Brenna Wynn Greer’s new study Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined American Citizenship (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), provides a fascinating look at a trio of black imagemakers – publisher …
African American Studies September 19, 2019

The Grapevine of the Black South

The Scott Newspaper Syndicate in the Generation before the Civil Rights Movement

Thomas Aiello

Hosted by James West
In the summer of 1928, William Alexander Scott began a small four-page weekly with the help of his brother Cornelius. By 1932 the Atlanta World had become a daily paper …
African American Studies February 25, 2019

The Black Skyscraper

Architecture and the Perception of Race

Adrienne Brown

Hosted by James West
Adrienne Brown joins the New Books Network this week to talk about her fascinating 2017 book, The Black Skyscraper: Architecture and the Perception of Race (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017) …
African American Studies March 22, 2017

Eye on the Struggle

Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press

James McGrath Morris

Hosted by James West
In his acclaimed biography Eye on the Struggle: Ethel Payne, the First Lady of the Black Press (Amistad, Reprint Edition, 2017), James McGrath Morris explores the fascinating life of pioneering …
African American Studies March 13, 2017

Blood at the Root

A Racial Cleansing in America

Patrick Phillips

Hosted by James West
This episode of New Books in African American Studies covers Patrick Phillips' powerful new book Blood at the Root: A Racial Cleansing in America (W.W. Norton and Company, 2016) At …
African American Studies October 27, 2016

The Defender

How the Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America

Ethan Michaeli

Hosted by James West
In his new book The Defender: How The Legendary Black Newspaper Changed America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016), Ethan Michaeli charts the riveting history of the Chicago Defender, one of the …
African American Studies October 21, 2016

Savage Portrayals

Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story

Natalie Byfield

Hosted by James West
Savage Portrayals: Race, Media, and the Central Park Jogger Story (Temple University Press, 2014) offers a timely reminder of how racial bias and prejudice continue to shape political perspectives and …
African American Studies October 7, 2016

Black Print Unbound

The Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture

Eric Gardner

Hosted by James West
Eric Gardner's new study Black Print Unbound: the Christian Recorder, African American Literature, and Periodical Culture (Oxford University Press, 2015) explores the development and voice of the Christian Recorder during …
African American Studies September 2, 2016

Alone Atop the Hill

The Autobiography of Alice Dunnigan

Carol McCabe Booker, ed.

Hosted by James West
Carol McCabe Booker is a Washington, D.C. attorney and former journalist. In the 1960s and 70s, she covered civil rights for the Voice of America, freelanced articles for The Washington …
African American Studies August 30, 2016

The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation

Benjamin Fagan

Hosted by James West
In the decades leading up to the Civil War, antebellum African Americans elites turned to the newspaper as a means of translating their belief in black "chosenness" into programs for …