I am historian of twentieth-century social movements with a specialization in Black internationalism, transnational movements, and radical organizing throughout North America, Africa, and the broader Black world. I am interested in conceptual and political histories of anti-apartheid, decolonization, African diaspora, Blackness and Black consciousness, anti-colonialism, and abolition.
I earned my doctorate in History and African American Studies from Yale University in 2022 where I was awarded the Sylvia Ardyn Boone prize for best dissertation in African and African American art and culture. I was formerly a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Black Studies at Northwestern University, a dissertation fellow in UCSB’s Department of Black Studies, and a History Workshop fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. I hold master’s degrees in International and World History from Columbia University and the London School of Economics, where I wrote my thesis on the international student anti-apartheid movement. I also earned a master’s degree in Education from Fordham University in New York City, where I worked as a special education teacher for the U.S. Department of Education at a middle school in the South Bronx. I received my AB in Classics and International Studies from Dartmouth College in 2011.
My research has been supported by the Black Studies Department at Northwestern University, the Schlesinger Library at Harvard University, the Black Metropolis Research Center, the Newcombe Foundation at the Institute for Citizens & Scholars, the UCSB Department of Black Studies, the U.S. Fulbright Program, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Foundation, the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) as well as the History Department, the African American Studies Department, the MacMillan Center, and International Security Studies at Yale University.
Since 2020, I have been a host of the New Books in African American Studies podcast channel on the New Books Network.
Peer-reviewed articles
- “Students Are the Spark: Anti-Apartheid in the Long 1980s.” The Journal of African American History 108 (3): 369–97. https://doi.org/10.1086/725828.
- “Black Consciousness Women’s Organizing Intimacies and the Coldness of European Anti-Apartheid Solidarity.” Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal 8 (1-3): 55-67. https://doi.org/10.1080/23802014.2022.2161617
- “Black Students and the U.S. Anti-Apartheid Movement on Campus, 1976-1985.” ZANJ: The Journal of Critical Global South Studies, no. 6 (1): 8-28. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/zanjglobsoutstud.6.1.0002
Textbooks
- “Student Activism against Apartheid in the United States” invited submission in Finding the Struggle: Radical Movements in Neoliberal United States, 1970-2001. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2020.
Podcasts features
- Backstory American History Podcast, Episode #0312 “From Music to Madiba”: https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/us-south-africa/
New Books Network podcast interviews hosted by me:
- Charisse Burden-Stelly, Black Scare/ Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States, November 17, 2023. https://newbooksnetwork.com/black-scare-red-scare
- Winston James, Claude McKay: The Making of a Black Bolshevik, February 11, 2023. https://newbooksnetwork.com/claude-mckay
- Abdul Alkalimat, The Future of Black Studies, December 29, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/the-future-of-black-studies
- Quito J. Swan, Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-Colonialism and the African World, December 20, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/pasifika-black
- Dawne Y. Curry, Social Justice at Apartheid’s Dawn: African Women Intellectuals and the Quest to Save the Nation, November 21, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/social-justice-at-apartheids-dawn
- Sarah F. Derbew, Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity, October 4, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/untangling-blackness-in-greek-antiquity
- Glenda E. Gilmore, Romare Bearden In the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist’s Reckoning with the South, interview with N’Kosi Oates. May 10, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/romare-bearden-in-the-homeland-of-his-imagination
- Brian Peterson, Thomas Sankara: A Revolutionary in Cold War Africa, March 17, 2022. https://newbooksnetwork.com/thomas-sankara
- Davarian L. Baldwin, In The Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities, December 13, 2021. https://newbooksnetwork.com/in-the-shadow-of-the-ivory-tower
- James G. Cantres, Blackening Britain: Caribbean Radicalism from Windrush to Decolonization, November 17, 2021. https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/peoples-places/african-american-studies
- Elizabeth Hinton, America on Fire: The Untold Story of Police Violence and Black Rebellion since the 1960, July 6, 2021. https://newbooksnetwork.com/america-on-fire
- Jelani M.Favors, Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, March 23, 2021. https://newbooksnetwork.com/shelter-in-a-time-of-storm
- Daphne Brooks, Liner Notes for the Revolution: The Intellectual Life of Black Feminist Sound, February 23, 2021. https://newbooksnetwork.com/liner-notes-for-the-revolution
- Kim Gallon, Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press, December 22, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/pleasure-in-the-news
- Quito J. Swan, Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice, December 4, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/pauulus-diaspora
- Chinua Thelwell, Exporting Jim Crow: Blackface minstrelsy in South Africa and Beyond, October 20, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/chinua-thelwell-exporting-jim-crow-blackface-minstrelsy-in-south-africa-and-beyond-u-massachusetts-press-2020
- Benjamin Talton, In This Land of Plenty: Mickey and Africa in American Politics), August 19, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/benjamin-talton-in-this-land-of-plenty-mickey-leland-and-africa-in-american-politics-u-pennsylvania-press-2019
- Marcia Chatelain, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America, June 18, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/marcia-chatelain-franchise-the-golden-arches-in-black-america-liveright-2020
- Hilary Moore and James Tracy, No Fascists USA: The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Social Movements, June 12, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/h-moore-and-j-tracy-no-fascist-usa-city-lights-2020
- Anne Heffernan, Limpopo’s Legacy: Student Politics and Democracy in South Africa, May 4, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/anne-heffernan-limpopos-legacy-student-politics-and-democracy-in-south-africa-james-currey-2019
- Peter Cole, Dockworker Power: Race and Activism in Durban and the San Francisco Bay Area, February 19, 2020. https://newbooksnetwork.com/peter-cole-dockworker-power-race-and-activism-in-durban-and-the-san-francisco-bay-area-u-illinois-press-2018
- HIST 169B African American History since 1865 (undergraduate lecture course)
- HIST 169R African American and African Diaspora (undergraduate research seminar)
- HIST 9 Global Anti-Apartheid (undergraduate lecture course)
- HIST 171D US and the World after 1945: US Foreign Policy & African Decolonization (undergraduate lecture course)
New Courses (25-26)
- HIST 201AM 20th C African American and African Diaspora (graduate seminar)
- 2024 – 2025 Black Star Assistant Professorship, UCSB Department of Black Studies
- 2024 The Op-Ed Project Public Voices Fellowship, UCSB
- 2023 Black Metropolis Research Center Fellowship, University of Chicago
- 2022 Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American Studies, Northwestern University
- 2021 Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship, Institute for Citizens and Scholars
- 2020 Black Studies Dissertation Fellowship, University of California Santa Barbara
- 2019 History Workshop Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
- 2018 Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowship (Johannesburg, South Africa)
- 2017 Digital Humanities Teaching Fellowship, Yale University
- 2016 Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship
- 2014 Leadership for Educational Equity Fellowship
- 2009 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship