Ricardo Guthrie on "Dedicated to the Cause of the People: Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett
The San Francisco Sun-Reporter and Black Consciousness, 1947-1966"

Wednesday, May 28, 12:00 Noon FREE

Center for Black Studies Research
4603 South Hall

Light refreshments

Visiting researcher Ricardo Guthrie will discuss how a Black physician used his weekly newspaper to help transform San Francisco's neighborhoods of Negro migrant workers into an activist Black community after World War II.

Only the third practicing Black physician in San Francisco during the 1940s, Carlton Goodlett parlayed his popularity and leadership skills into the political arena—leading the local NAACP chapter, agitating for more African American employees at the city level, breaking down segregation in local hospitals, building multiracial coalitions, and forging two newspapers into a unified voice for African Americans.

Goodlett and the Sun-Reporter staff contributed to the developing consciousness and empowerment movements which found fertile ground in the Bay Area during the 1950s and 1960s. Guthrie’s research tells part of the story about why this occurred in San Francisco, and explores the continuing social and political legacy of Black and ethnic journalism in establishing a more inclusive, multicultural public sphere.

Celebrating Haiti's History, Supporting Haiti's Future
HAITI FLAG WEEK

Events May 19-May 23, 2008

Monday 11:30-1:00: Brown Bag Luncheon with Haiti Soleil founder Nadège T. Clitandre
Learn more about the important work being done to build libraries and museums in Haiti to provide a safe space to nurture education and democracy (at the Center)
Tuesday 12-2:00: Bookdrive for Bibliothèque du Soleil organized by Delta Sigma Theta Sorority student organization (at the Arbor)
Tuesday 3pm: "The Position of Haiti in the African Diaspora" Talk by Nadège T. Clitandre. Clitandre’s work is concerned with ways in which displacement, migration, diaspora, and notions of exile, homelessness, and return are articulated by Haitian women writers.(at the Women's Center)
Wednesday 5:00-7:00: Poetry Reading & Open Mic Nadège T. Clitandre reads “Diaspora in My Hair” and other poems, followed by featured readers & open mic. Copies of Brassage: An Anthology of Poems by Haitian Women will be available for sale, with proceeds to Haiti Soleil.(at AdCRC)
Friday 12-3pm: Bake sale for Haiti organized by Akanke (at the Arbor)

Dr. LeGrace Benson of the Arts of Haiti Project
Paradise as an Ecological Proposal

Tuesday, April 29, 2008 • 1940 Buchanan Hall • Free

From the mid-twentieth century to the present, Haitian painters have created landscapes that seem on the surface to have only an ironic relationship with the actualities of their increasingly deforested, eroded country. The tropical beauty of the works could be dismissed as superficial tourist art, colorful blandishments for visitors from the pale north countries to take a piece of the colorful warmth back home. But closer attention to the themes and their details leads to revelations of attitudes of realistic distress coupled with directional signals of hope. This presentation includes a selection of Haitian paintings and sculptures from 1950 to 2007.

African American Traditions in Southern California:
History, Culture, Social Vision, and Challenges

This program provides unparalleled insights into one of the world’s most vibrant cultural   communities. Simultaneously, the participants will examine the current challenges facing Blacks in Southern California. Our goal is to build an on-going campus dialogue on the shared futures of California’s communities. Organized around four inter-generational dialogues, the program is designed to appeal to those interested in several discourses:  African American expressive culture; social and economic conditions; racial and ethnic disparities; social and cultural movements; public policy; and the history and future of California.

Tradition I. The Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers  and Contemporary African American Film
Exhibition: A retrospective of the  films of Billy Woodberry, the Los Angeles School of Black Filmmakers, and of  Gregory Everett 
Tuesday, July 10, 7 - 10 pm - Lotte Lehman Concert Hall

Dialogue with Billy Woodberry and Gregory Everett: Billy Woodberry is a legendary independent filmmaker. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles Film/Television Department with an MFA in production. A founding member of the Los Angeles School, his  landmark 1984 feature Bless Their Little Hearts focused on a family in South Los Angeles that is driven to the breaking point by poverty. His 2004 film, Woodberry has taught in the Art School and the Film/Video School at CalArts since 1989 and has been a member of the Board of the Film Forum, Los Angeles since 1998. Gregory Everett is an artist, craftsman, filmmaker, and hip-hop guru. He received his first formal instruction and training in cinema at the Barnsdall Junior Arts Academy for Filmmaking and then received professional training in drama, film, and video at the Ebony Showcase Theatre, Brock Peter’s Communications’ Bridge, and at Los Angeles City College.. Everett is currently producing and directing various documentaries: Black Infant Mortality: Your Generation at Risk; History of the Hood (on the evolution of L.A. street gangs); 41st & Central (the story of the Southern California chapter of the Black Panther Party as told by a father to his a son); and the History of West Coast Hip-Hop. Wednesday, July 11, 7 - 10pm - Lotte Lehman Concert Hall

Tradition II. The Music of the Watts and South Central Renaissances  
Kamau Daaood is the author of The Language of Saxophones: Selected Poems of Kamau Daaood and is the co-founder, with drummer Billy Higgins, of The World Stage Performance Gallery. A former member of the Watts Writers Workshop and the Pan African People’s Arkestra, in 1997 he recorded the critically acclaimed album Leimert Park. Medusa has been compared to Gil-Scott, Chuck D, and Lauren Hill. She is key member of the West Coast underground hip-hop, and artistic community, and was one of the first to consistently perform with a live band  She  received a Grammy for her work with the band Ozomatli. LA Weekly has voted Medsua LA’s “Best Hip-Hop Artist” two years in a row. Wednesday, July 25, 7 - 10 pm - Lotte Lehman Concert Hall

Tradition III.  Social Vision/ Current Challenges:  Children, Educational Reform, and Women’s Health
Wednesday,  August 1, 2007  3- 5:30
“School Reform in Los Angeles” Joyce Germaine Watts is on the faculty of the School of Educational Leadership and Change at the Fielding Graduate University. “ The State of  African American Children” Cathy Tate is Program Director of Sage, a school-age child care center that serves children and families living in the Nickerson Gardens Housing Development in Watts.  “The School to Prison Pipeline" Damien Schnyder is an anthropologist and doctoral candidate in the African Diaspora Program at the University of Texas. Black Women’s Health Disparities in Southern California. Julie Grigsby is an anthropologist and doctoral candidate in the African Diaspora Program at the University of Texas. Wednesday, August 1, 3-5:30 pm - McCune Conference Room (IHC)

 Tradition IV. Social Vision/Current Challenges: Black and Latino Relations
Tuesday August 7,  2007  3-5:30 pm
Irene Vásquez is Chair and Associate Professor of the Chicana and Chicano Studies Department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Ron Wilkins is an expert on Black and Mexican relations, a former SNCC activist, and a professor in the Department of Africana Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. McCune Conference Room (6020 HSSB)

A Summer  2007 Cultural and Enrichment Program  Sponsored by the University of California, Santa Barbara: Office of the Vice Chancellor, Academic Programs,  the Office of  Summer Sessions, the Department of Black Studies, and the Center for Black Studies. Convener: Assistant Professor Clyde Woods, Department of Black Studies, cwoods@blackstudies.ucsb.edu. For more information on events please call Raphaëlla Nau at 805-893-3800 or email her at  rnau@blackstudies.ucsb.edu

5th Annual Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture

LANI GUINIER

Race, Gender & Activism in our Communities

FREE

Sunday • February 25, 2007
4:00 pm
Victoria Hall

“Gifted with second sight, we can share our stories ... build coalitions, develop a voice ... We shall speak until all the people gain a voice.” —Lani Guinier

In 1998, Lani Guinier became the first black woman to be appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law School. Guinier came to public attention when she was nominated by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, only to have her name withdrawn without a confirmation hearing. Guinier turned that incident into a powerful personal and political memoir, Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice.

A nationally-renowned speaker and the author of many articles and op-ed pieces on democratic theory, political representation, educational equity, and issues of race and gender, Guinier has written Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change, The Tyranny of the Majority, Who’s Qualified? (with Susan Sturm), and The Miner’s Canary (with Gerald Torres).

The Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture honors the memory of one of Santa Barbara’s most outspoken advocates for women and people of color. Dr. Kennedy transformed the Santa Barbara community with her commitment to social justice, activism, and democracy. For additional information on this free event or the Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture Series: 893-3914

4th Annual Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture

ROBIN KELLEY

AFRICA SPEAKS! AMERICA ANSWERS:
THE DRUM WARS OF GUY WARREN

FREE
Thursday • March 9, 2006
4:00 pm
UCSB Campbell Hall

“A leading voice for contemporary black urban issues”

—Manning Marable

Nationally renowned as a dynamic speaker and insightful cultural critic, Robin D.G. Kelley will be presenting “Africa Speaks, America Answers: The Drum Wars of Guy Warren.”

He will examine the cultural influence of jazz in the 1950s, in particular the art of drummer Guy Warren, a Ghanaian musician considered by many critics to be the inventor of Afro-jazz. Kelley is author of seven books, including the award-winning Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and The Black Working Class. For additional information: 893-3914

The press release for this event may be downloaded here.

The Shirley Kennedy Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the UCSB Center for Black Studies and co-sponsored by the Office of the Chancellor, the Office of Academic Preparation & Equal Opportunity, the Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and the Associate Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Academic Policy, the Department of Black Studies, New Racial Studies, the Race and Technology Initiative, the Women’s Studies Program, the Hull Chair in Women’s Studies, the Department of History, the Center for Chicano Studies, the Department of Film Studies, the Department of Anthropology, the Department of Political Science, Asian American Studies Department, the Center for Work, Labor and Democracy, the Department of Global & International Studies, Department of Chicana/o Studies and the Women’s Center.

Race & Response
in the Wake of Katrina
Wednesday, October 19, 2005 • 2:00-4:30

An interdisciplinary panel discussion on the complex interaction of race, access to resources, and the reaction from neighboring communities and the Federal and local government.

Welcome Remarks by Dean Melvin Oliver

Panel Discussion moderated by
Carl Gutiérrez-Jones, Director of the Center for Chicano Studies
Featuring:
Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum
William Freudenburg (Environmental Studies)
Gaye Theresa Johnson (Black Studies)
George Lipsitz (Black Studies)
Howard Winant (Sociology)
With a photo presentation by Nathan Bassiouni,
a student at Tulane University deputized by the National Guard for New Orleans rescue work,
introduced by Chryss Yost.

Hosted by the Department of Black Studies & the Center for Black Studies

Sponsored by
the Office of the Chancellor
the Division of Social Sciences
the Office of Academic Preparation & Equal Opportunity
the Center for Chicano Studies
Associate Vice Chancellor - Diversity, Equity, and Academic Policy.
the New Racial Studies Project
the Department of Film Studies
the Department of Women’s Studies
the Hull Chair in Women’s Studies.

This event was filmed for national broadcast. For airtimes, visit UCSB TV or go directly to Channel 21 website (local viewers) or UCTV (national).

DVD copies are available for $24.95. To order, please email UCSB TV.

Michael Datcher
“The Lyricism of Fatherlessness: Musicality and the Missing”
Wednesday, March 30, 2005 • 11:30 am

Poet, playwright and journalist Michael Datcher is the author of the New York Times Bestseller and critically acclaimed memoir Raising Fences: A Black Man’s Love Story. A member of the World Stage Writer’s Workshop in Leimart Park, he teaches English Literature at West Los Angeles College and UCLA Extension. Concentrating on the relationship between idiom, genre, and voice, Datcher will combine a literary reading with a scholarly talk entitled “The Lyricism of Fatherlessness: Musicality and the Missing.” The space will open at 11:30 am for informal discussion and mingling. The literary presentation will begin at 12 noon with a guided Critical Response Q&A to follow.

Dr. Roberto Strongman
“On the Down Low?: Gay Black Closet”
Wednesday, November 17, 2004 • Noon

This presentation utilizes the cultural phenomenon of “the Down Low” to question the historical models of canonical queer texts that locate the transition between homosexual behavior to identity in late XIX Century Western societies. The experience of African-American men who have sex with other men and don’t consider themselves “gay” serves as an important perspective to interrogate the underlying racial assumptions of Foucault, Sedgwick and Butler. Even as it establishes the existence of homosexual non-conformist subjects, J.L King’s testimonial text, On the Down Low, operates as an evangelical treatise that attempts to impose an in/out model on “Down Low” men via the trope of religious conversion. As such, it would appear that theoretical and popular discourses are determined to bring the possibly enabling transgression of “the Down Low” into compliance within racialized and historical models of what might need to be called “the homo-normative.”

Roberto Strongman, Ph.D. is an assistant professor in the UCSB Department of Black Studies.

Dr. Darieck Scott
"The Sexual Scene of Slavery: Notes on Black (Male) Subjectivity and Toni Morrison's Beloved"
Wednesday, March 10, 2004 • Noon
This talk is a close reading of a scene from Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987), in which the character Paul D is sexually humiliated as a chain-gang prisoner by white guards. In the novel, Paul D's unsuccessful effort to suppress the memory of his sexual exploitation occasions a productive reconsideration of the trope of emasculation and suggests the insufficiency of "manhood" as the symbol of black liberation. Toni Morrison broaches a taboo subject — the sexual subordination of black men as slaves. The effect of this inquiry is that it takes two well-worn tropes in our general understanding of the depredations of slavery —"emasculation of black men" and "rape of black women" — and combines them, suggesting that one method of emasculation is the rape of black men by white men. In revealing this heretofore unspeakable possibility (just as the novel as a whole attempts to represent the unspeakable and elusive trauma of the Middle Passage), the text points toward a refashioned vision of "blackness," tied neither to a particular concept of sexuality nor to phallocentric ideologies of manhood and gender roles.

Dr. Scott is an assistant professor of English with an emphasis in African-American literature, fiction writing, lesbian/gay and queer studies.

Dr. Peter Bloom
"'To be or not to be American:' African-American Boxing in Interwar France"
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
The celebration of African-American boxing figures in France during the interwar period is starting point for this discussion of how French perceptions of African-Americans were differentiated from African performers. Dr. Bloom will discuss the intersecting itineraries of Jack Johnson, Battling Siki, and Panama Al Brown, and their integration into the boxing and music hall culture. He will address the question of how African-American figures were appropriated in France as a more creative kind of American: Jack Johnson's boxing style was a source of inspiration for the French Dadaist poet Arthur Cravan (1992), and Panama Al Brown was an icon for the French Surrealists. Battling Siki, a French colonial subject born in Senegal and brought up in Marseilles, became persona non gratis in France after defeating Georges Carpentier, the French middle-weight champion, in a fixed match that he was supposed to lose. "To be or not to be American," a Dadaist credo, suggests a French interwar fascination with African-American style, movement, and music in opposition to the colonial African subject.

Specializing in French and francophone cinema and society, Dr. Bloom's interests range from the development of international film technologies at the turn of the twentieth century to contemporary film and media in Europe and Africa. His ongoing research examines the relationship between French colonial cinema, the history of ethnographic film, postcolonial francophone visual culture, and historical practices of media production. Bring a bag lunch. Light refreshments will be served. Noon-1:30. FREE.

Professor Howard Winant
"New Racial Politics in the 21st Century"
Thursday, November 20, 2003 • Noon

The racial abyss that split the world at the origins of the modern age produced the political systems that still shape our lives and world. The discovery and divulgation of the race-concept not only forged the chains of oppression, but also gave underlying form and structure to the concept of freedom.

"Freedom" of course remains a utopian goal, yet all its varieties—the freedom of labor, of the body, of sex and gender, and most centrally for my present purposes, the freedom of political activity, of democracy—have their modern origins in the struggle against racial domination. The limited but real democracy of the present is thus a product of a vast labor: the achievement of labor rights, of the franchise, of popular sovereignty and freedom of expression, of national liberation from imperial rule, of reproductive rights and women's emancipation more generally, and of popular democracy in all its forms, can be traced back to conflict over and about the racial divide, conflict fundamental to the modern world's gestation and development.

The post-WWII racial justice and anticolonial movements may have been incorporated by the national and global hegemonic systems they themselves helped create. The racial reforms they generated may have fallen short of producing the social justice and democracy they sought. But these movements have certainly not failed either. They have created a new "common sense" that clashes with white supremacy, that deeply undermines the imperial logic of "the West against the rest," and that calls into question the division of the world along North-South or West-East lines. So now what? Is democracy still possible? Have race-consciousness and racial injustice been driven off the political stage? Is the world regressing to a situation like that of a century ago, when white supremacy was taken for granted by those in power? Is the US enacting a simulacrum of those times, living in a kind of racial Disneyland where race is a thing of the past, where the happy pirates can at last frolic again, undisturbed, on the Caribbean beach?

Today the bombs rain down once again on impoverished countries of the global South (and global East). A quarter-century after we thought that the age of imperialism was finally over, dreams of empire have been revived. Meanwhile the opposite dream, Dr. King's dream, of an inclusive and peaceful US society (and world society) seems to have gone up in smoke. In the US, state policy is being made by corporate predators, religious fanatics, and militarists. Society's vulnerable groups—the chief inheritors of the legacies of conquest, slavery, and imperialism—are being left to their own devices.
Much of that power, and a great deal of that greed, are framed in racial terms. This is the problem of the 21st century racial rule: not the problem of the color line, but the problem of how the color-line can be both affirmed and denied, simultaneously reinforced and undermined. This is also the problem of 21st century movements for racial democracy: how to affirm racial identity/difference without reifying it; how to oppose racism without restricting racial autonomy.

A prominent commentator on the role of race in society, Prof. Winant's books include The World is a Ghetto: Race and Democracy Since WWII, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s, and Racial Conditions: Politics, Theory, Comparisons.

Food for Thought lectures are hosted in the Center for Black Studies, 4603 South Hall. Bring a lunch; drinks and light snacks provided. Nourish your body and mind!

Dr. Herbert M. Cole
"The Politics of Maternity:
Mother & Child Imagery in African Arts"
Wednesday, October 22, 2003 • Noon

This talk samples the forms and meanings of 3000 years of compelling African Mother and Child imagery. Spiritually or politically significant in nearly all cases, the maternity icon has diverse roles in such realms as education, divination, social protest, and cosmology. The talk will contrast earlier traditional patriarchal images, such as the Queen Mother from Cameroon (left) with contemporary art, by mothers, that explores "maternal subjectivity"—what it means to bear and raise children in a male-dominated culture.

Food for Thought lectures are hosted in the Center for Black Studies, 4603 South Hall.

Prof. Albert Jordy Raboteau
"The Politics of Religion and Social Justice"
Thursday, October 2, 2003 • Noon

Professor Albert Jordy Raboteau is Henry W. Putnam Professor of Religion, Princeton University. He is the author of Slave Religion, A Fire in the Bones, Canaan Land, and A Sorrowful Joy.