Fugitive Freedoms: A Race, Politics, and Blues Circuit Before Civil Rights

In celebration of its elevation to departmental status, Barnard Africana Studies hosts its third annual Africana Distinguished Alumnae event, this year honoring Thulani Davis (class of 1970). A journalist, playwright, and author of six books including My Confederate Kinfolk and 1959, Davis has recently embarked on dissertation research and will discuss her current study, “Fugitive Freedoms: A Race, Politics, and Blues Circuit Before Civil Rights.” This ongoing project explores broad-based forms of political activism forged through a circuit of gathering points for African Americans in labor camps, agricultural distribution, and tent shows which later became important working-class spheres of organized resistance.

Davis' talk is followed by brief remarks from various members of the Africana Studies community, including Kim Hall, Ntozake Shange, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and Frances Sadler, as well as a dance choreographed by Sydnie Mosley.