African American Intellectual History Society

Newsboy selling Chicago Defender newspaper, Chicago, April 1942 (Library of Congress) A collaborative workshop co-sponsored by the African American Intellectual History Society and the Black Press Research Collective on October 15-16, 2026 at Brown University. We are inviting early-career scholars and ABD graduate students to participate in a two-day workshop at Brown University in October 2026 focused on the Global Black Press.

Photo: Shutterstock. I am indebted to the scholars who read Vengeance Feminism: The Power of Black Women’s Fury in Lawless Times (Seal, 2024) for this forum. They have raised interesting questions and offered generative observations about its contents. I am also grateful to Global Black Thought for curating these pieces. My essay will blend responses to their work with a meditation on the challenges of writing a book like this.

Photo: Shutterstock Vengeance Feminism is a bold and timely Black feminist reading of Black women’s enactments of violence in the archives of late nineteenth-century Philadelphia. Personal, political, and affective, Gross’s theorization of vengeance feminism holds together instances of Black feminist vigilantism, self-defense, and, perhaps most unexpectedly, emotional “exorcism” (11).

Mamie Phipps Clark and her husband, Kenneth Clark. Credit: Columbia University Archives In today’s post, Ashley Everson, assistant professor of African American and Africana Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park and a managing editor of Global Black Thought, interviews Lacey P. Hunter and Hettie V. Williams about their new article, “There were no ‘Idiot Savants’ in the Group”: Mamie Phipps Clark and the Brown v. Board Decision.

Jesse Jackson speaking at a PUSH event in Chicago, 1973 (Flickr, John H. White, Documerica) The passing of the Reverend Jesse Jackson (1941-2026) leaves the world without one of its major remaining ties to the Civil Rights era. A native of Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson embodied the Black American experience that so many others have lived.

Photo: Tacuma Peters In today’s post, Ashley Everson, a managing editor of Global Black Thought (the official journal of AAIHS), interviews Tacuma Peters about his new article, “Beyond ‘A Purely Passive Servitude’: Antonio Oblitas, Casta, and Afro-Descendants in the Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II.” He examines the contributions of Afro-descendants to the Túpac Amaru II rebellion in Peru.

In today’s post, Ashley Everson, a managing editor of Global Black Thought (the official journal of AAIHS), interviews Robert Schwaller about his new article, “Free Black Community in Sixteenth Century Panama: Communal Mobilization against Tribute.” In 1575, free Black residents of Panama, identifying as negros and mulatos, protested the imposition of tribute on people of African descent.

In today’s post, editors of Global Black Thought (the official journal of AAIHS), interview Dr. Ben Vinson III about his research and writing. A distinguished historian, Dr. Vinson served as the 18th president of Howard University. He is currently president of the American Historical Association (AHA). Dr. Vinson’s scholarly work centers on the African diaspora with a focus on Latin America history and culture.

In today’s post, Ashley Everson, a managing editor of Global Black Thought, interviews Crystal R.

In today’s post, Ashley Everson, a managing editor of Global Black Thought, interviews Christy Garrison-Harrison, a scholar of Black Womanist Geographies, about her article in the first issue of Global Black Thought, “Interjecting a Black Feminist Geographies Framework into Social Science Research Paradigms.” Christy Garrison-Harrison is an Assistant Professor of History and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College.