Ashp Podcast

Premilla Nadasen, Queens College, CUNYWomen and Black Freedom: Rethinking the Civil Rights MovementThe Graduate Center, CUNYApril 22, 2010Historian Premilla Nadasen examines the importance of women in the Black Freedom Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. In Part 1 of this podcast, she outlines how the traditional narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, which tended toward “great men approach” is being expanded in three ways: 1) the timeframe is extended beyond 1955-1968; 2) the geography is expanded to encompass the North; and 3) a broader range of activists are considered including those who promoted armed self-defense and women who focused on gender issues. In Part 2, starting at 25:40, Premilla Nadasen focuses on Johnnie Tillmon and welfare rights activism to illustrate how inclusion of this movement expands the Civil Rights narrative to include gender, economics, and women’s self-determination.

Gregory Downs, City College of New York, CUNY“Power & Slavery: Slave Communities in the Antebellum South”The Graduate Center, CUNYDecember 4, 2008Historian Gregory Downs explores the capacity for individual and social resistance evident in the American system of slavery. In the antebellum South, American slaves worked to build communities through religion, family, political networks, and communities of shared experience. In attempting to partially redefine slavery on their own terms in these ways, they changed the experience of slavery for themselves and also created problems that would change slavery for their masters.In Part 1 of this podcast, Downs describes the worldwide history of non-chattel slavery, how and why slavery came to take its particular form in the early American colonies, and its subsequent geographical and demographic expansion into the nineteenth century. In Part 2, beginning at 34:08, he explains how the enslaved used religious practices, family formation, and shared communication across

Carlos Sanabria, Hostos Community College, CUNY“Demographic Revolutions: Hispanic Migration to the United States”Hostos Community College, CUNYApril 24, 2009Why did we come here? And why are we so poor? Historian Carlos Sanabria discusses migration and the situation of the U.S. Hispanic population in the post-World War Two period. He outlines areas of study such as the demographic revolutions which led to the growth, dispersal, and diversity of the Hispanic population in the U.S.; migration stories from locations such as Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Puerto Rico; and the causes, successes, and shortcomings of Hispanic migration among the different groups. Dr. Sanabria is coordinator of Latin American and Caribbean Studies at Hostos Community College, City University of New York.

Barbara Winslow, Brooklyn College“Women’s History, Women’s Activism: The Shirley Chisholm Center at the CUNY Graduate Center”The Graduate Center, CUNYNovember 14, 2008Historian and educator Barbara Winslow (Brooklyn College) discusses the life and times of Shirley Chisholm, the legendary African-American activist, Congresswoman, and presidential candidate. Winslow places Chisholm’s legacy in the context of the feminist movement and the struggle for civil rights, putting special emphasis on the Brooklyn-born politician’s local roots.This talk was given as part of A Catalyst for Change, an exhibit celebrating Chisholm’s trailblazing political career, sponsored by the Brooklyn College Women’s Studies Program and the Shirley Chisholm Center for Research on Women.

Nancy Hewitt, Rutgers University“Many Paths to Progressive Reform: New Perspectives on the Progressive Era”The Graduate Center, CUNYMarch 27, 2007Early twentieth-century progressivism was a constellation of efforts undertaken by a wide range of people whose perspectives on reform were rooted in their race, class, region, and religion. In this talk to New York City teachers, Nancy Hewitt weaves together the “big P” progressivism of major reform campaigns, which are well represented in most history textbooks, with stories of the “little p” progressivism of workers, immigrants, women, and African Americans.In the first part of this podcast, Hewitt describes some major progressive reform campaigns and highlights the role of Atlanta, Georgia, female activists in conservation and civic reform, known as municipal housekeeping. In the second part, starting at 22:48, she continues her discussion of municipal housekeeping by focusing on northern cities and also offers several examples of reform efforts involving both m

Christian G. Appy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst“The Vietnam War: What Are We Fighting For?”The Paley Center for MediaMay 14, 2008Christian G. Appy (University of Massachusetts, Amherst), historian and author of Patriots: The Vietnam War Remembered from All Sides, shares the historical insights gleaned from his investigation of the Vietnam War from American and Vietnamese perspectives. His extensive research, which involved hundreds of oral history interviews with American veterans as well as Vietnamese civilians and soldiers from both sides of the conflict, adds an important dimension to the staggering human cost of the war. In this lecture to New York City teachers, he relates some of the stories he heard in the course of his research, and provides evidence for his conclusion that the outcome of the war was determined largely by the political will of the Vietnamese people.

Roscoe C. Brown, Jr., The Graduate Center, CUNY“They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, But the Tuskegee Airmen Did It”The Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 27, 2009Educator Roscoe C. Brown, Jr. shares his personal history of race in the United States as seen through the perspective of World War II. Dr. Brown describes incidents of discrimination and social injustice that propelled him into a life of activist politics. Brown recounts his upbringing in black middle-class Washington in the 1920s and 30s, and his involvement in anti-lynching campaigns and demonstrations in the years leading up to World War II. Locating his experience in the context of the struggle to attain equality for African Americans in the military, he describes the lasting accomplishments of the Tuskegee Airmen- “America’s first African-American military flying unit”-for which Brown served as commander of the 100th Fighter Squadron of the 332nd Fighter Group.

Jeanie Attie, Long Island University“The Problem of Freedom in the U.S. Civil War”The Graduate Center, CUNYOctober 13, 2006Historian Jeanie Attie examines the significance of slavery to the people who fought in and lived during the American Civil War. The enslaved, as constant observers of the lives of free men, clearly understood the value of freedom. Free whites in the antebellum South had a stake in preserving a state of “un-freedom” within their society because “un-freedom” ultimately defined their own state of freedom. White northern Republicans viewed the future of the nation, and their own freedom, as bound by whether new territories entered the Union as free or slave states. In this podcast Attie discusses the issues central to the sectional conflict that led to civil war and provides a close reading of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address for New York City social studies teachers.

Gerald Markowitz, John Jay College and The Graduate Center, CUNY“FDR, The Depression, and the New Deal: What Was New?”The Graduate Center, CUNYOctober 23, 2007In this presentation to New York City teachers, historian Gerald Markowitz discusses Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. He begins by focusing on what was new about the New Deal, including the government’s response to the Great Depression, the relationship of the government to the people, and changes in the definition of freedom. Markowitz continues by discussing the limitations of the New Deal, which he describes as an innovative and unstable reform coalition that faced constraints when confronting agricultural, southern, and civil rights policies. Limitation, Markowitz concludes, is a consistent theme in U.S. history, and what is left undone in one era is often the basis for change and reform in the next.Images used in this presentation:

Kevin Kenny, Boston College“Irish Americans and the Meaning of Race in the Mid-Nineteenth Century”The Graduate Center, CUNYDecember 13, 2007Speaking before an audience of New York City teachers, historian Kevin Kenny describes the profound impact of the first great wave of Irish immigration to the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century. Swelling the populations of major U.S. cities in a way that no previous immigrant group had ever done, the Irish played a central role in the growth of cities in the nineteenth century U.S., notably in New York City’s Five Points neighborhood. Like other immigrant groups, they experienced some prejudice from the native-born population; unlike other groups, however, such discrimination was never written into law.In Part 1 of this podcast, Kenny outlines the demographic impact of Irish immigration on Ireland and the United States and discusses how Irish immigrants were both perpetrators of racism and victims of prejudice. In Part 2, starting at 44:47, he interprets a series of image

Martha Hodes, New York University“Land and Labor in the Era of Reconstruction: Conflict, Compromise, Violence”The Graduate Center, CUNYFebruary 15, 2007Historian Martha Hodes explores the many meanings of freedom that emerged at the end of the Civil War. Although the war was over, new conflict erupted between freed slaves and former slave owners over what form emancipation would take. Freedpeople viewed land ownership as essential to their independence, while former slave owners sought to establish a new system of rural wage labor. This essential struggle would shape the fate of Reconstruction. In this podcast, Martha Hodes speaks to New York City teachers about how to present the era of Reconstruction in the classroom, and provides a close reading of testimony from the 1871 Congressional Investigation into Ku Klux Klan violence and discusses its impact on teaching Reconstruction.1871 Congressional Testimony Excerpt:Testimony about Klan violence, U.S. Congress, 1871

Matthew Jacobson, Yale University“Immigration and Conceptions of ‘Fit’ Citizenship, 1790-1924″The Graduate Center, CUNYApril 14, 2008In this talk to New York City schoolteachers, historian Matthew Jacobson challenges conventional notions about America’s immigrant past. First, Jacobson discusses immigration from Europe to the United States within the larger context of global migration set off by the rise of industrial capitalism. Jacobson then examines the cultural and political responses of native-born Americans to new immigrants, and the long-lasting effects of the 1790 Naturalization Act. Finally, he discusses the strategies used by immigrants to survive in new surroundings while also preserving their ethnic identities.