Hutchins Lecture by Waldo E. Martin Jr.

Please join us for the final Hutchins Lecture of the 2014-15 academic year, as Waldo E. Martin Jr. addresses “Reaping the Whirlwind”: The Contested History of the Black Panther Party. This lecture will be held in the Kresge Foundation Room (039 Graham Memorial Hall).

This talk will draw upon the making and reception of Martin’s co-authored (with Joshua Bloom) work Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party (U of California P, 2013).  The history of the Black Panther Party is a minefield, but Martin will discuss key enduring historical controversies surrounding how the party has been perceived and conceptualized over time by various constituencies, including former party members, scholars, and ideologues.

Central to this presentation will be an analysis of two questions. First, he will discuss why the party was important in its own time and the party’s enduring historical importance. Second, he will argue for the centrality of the party’s radical politics in our continuing efforts to historicize and understand the party.

Waldo E. Martin Jr. is the Alexander F. & May T. Morrison Professor of American History & Citizenship at the University of California, Berkeley. He has authored, co-authored, and co-edited a host of authoritative works on African American History and Culture, with a special focus on the Civil Rights Movement. He is currently Co-Editor (with Patricia A. Sullivan) of the John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture at UNC Press, and he recently published (with Deborah Gray White & Mia Bay) Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2013).

This lecture is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.