History on Wednesday: Keisha A. Brown
Reimagining Race and Labor in the Interwar period: W.E.B. Du Bois, Black Agency and the Pan-Pacific
Keisha A. Brown
Note: This is a hybrid event
In January of 1926, the Australian Labor Party issued a call to hold a Pan-Pacific Conference to be held in November of that year in Honolulu, Hawaii devoted to peace in the Pacific region considering the Great War or World War I. In the aftermath of the World War I, the world was not only grappling with its questions of how to best maintain peace to avoid another global war at the international, regional, national, and local levels.
In each case, the guiding question was how do we best move forward? In a response to this open call issued by D.L. McNamara, the then Secretary of the National Executive of the Labor Party, Dr. W.E.B Du Bois pens a letter regarding the possible participation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) at this gathering for representatives for labor and other organizations from countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean. Prior to and after this conference, Du Bois had published works regarding Black agency and labor, such as Black Reconstruction, to reassert Black agency to highlight the myriad of ways that Black Americans were active in shaping their identities, communities, and the nation through political engagement in pivotal postwar moments such as the Reconstruction Era in the United States post-Civil War.
This working paper addresses these meetings and related convenings centered around the concerns of Blacks at the intersections of race, labor, and social issues illuminate the desire to understand and engage existing democratic processes and institutions to address these problems. Using the work of Du Bois, this talk will analyze the intersections or race and labor in relation to questions regarding capital and citizenship to assess how reimagining’s of race and labor.
On campus and on Zoom
On-Campus venue: Brennan MacCallum Building A18 Room 822 | click for map
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The Department of History hosts a lively departmental research seminar series. Everyone is welcome to attend.
Seminar details
Hybrid event | Wednesday 14 September | 12:10-2:00pm
The seminar will run on Zoom and on campus
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The Department of History is part of the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry (SOPHI)