This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Maureen Footer about her biographical work on dancer and choreographer Buddy Bradley. Williams is an author, cultural critic, and multi-award-winning professor of history at Monmouth University and director of the African Diaspora Studies Program in the Department of History and Monmouth. Footer is a prolific author of several books and her work has been reviewed in Vogue, the Wall Street Journal, and Vanity Fair. She is also the author of Feel the Floor: Restoring the Life and Legacy of Jazz Choreographer Buddy Bradley published by Beacon Press in 2026...

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Beth R. Wilson about her work on the history of emotions among enslaved people in the Antebellum South. Williams is a multi-award winning professor of history at Monmouth University and director of the African Diaspora Studies Program in the Department of History and Monmouth University and Wilson is currently a Teaching Fellow in U.S. History in the History Department at the University of Warick and the author of ‘I Felt All this’ Enslaved People’s Emotional Lives in the Antebellum US South (Cambridge University Press, 2026) about the li...

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with writer John Vercher about his critically acclaimed book Devil is Fine. Williams is a professor of history at Monmouth University and Vercher is the author of three notable novels and currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Monmouth University. Vercher’s works signal the tradition of Afro-Surrealism that began in the Harlem Renaissance with writers such as George Schuyler as represented with his work Black No More originally published in 1931. His debut novel Three-Fifths was listed as one of the best books of 2019 by the Ch...

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Angela Simms about the Black Middle Class in a Baltimore suburb. Williams is professor of history and director of the African Diaspora Studies program at Monmouth University and Simms is currently an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Urban Studies at Barnard College Columbia University. Simms is also the author of the book Fighting for a Foothold: How Government and Markets Undermine Black Middle-Class Suburbia recently published by the Russell Sage Foundation in 2026. Fighting for a Foothold is the focus of our conversation. In this text, Simms argues...

This week Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Jeanne Theoharis about the Civil Rights Movement in the North. Williams is professor of history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and the current director of the African Diaspora Studies Program at Monmouth. Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks and winner of the 2014 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work Biography/Autobiography and the...

This week Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Lewis F. Thomas, III about education, Black men, and mentoring. Williams is a professor of history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and the director of the African Diaspora Studies (ADS) program at Monmouth. Thomas has more than thirty years of experience in the field of education working in several urban environments including in Philadelphia and New York. This week we focus on his extensive career as a teacher and administrator in various locales as well as his work specifically on the development of...

This week Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Mary Ellen Curtin about her recent book She Changed the Nation: Barbara Jordan’s Life and Legacy in Black Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025). Williams is a professor of history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and the current director of the African Diaspora Studies Program at Monmouth University. Curtin is Associate Professor in the Department of Critical Race, Gender, and Culture Studies and Director of American Studies at American University in Washington, D.C. She is a historian of modern African American and wo...

This week Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Marion Orr about his recent book House of Diggs: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Consequential Black Congressman, Charles C. Diggs, Jr (University of North Carolina Press, 2025). Williams is a professor of history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and the current director of the African Diaspora Studies Program at Monmouth University. Orr is the inaugural Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Urban Studies at Brown University. He was a member of the political science faculty pr...

This is the finale episode of season 6. In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses women of color in the academy with Drs. Zaneta Rago-Craft and Nicole Pulliam. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and Rago-Craft is the inaugural director of the Intercultural Center at Monmouth. Pulliam is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership as well as the founding director of the Social Justice Academy at Monmouth University. These two women are campus leaders with a wealth of experience in their fields...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black athletes, political protest, and social justice with Shaun M. Anderson. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University located in West Long Branch, New Jersey and Anderson is Associate Professor of Organizational Communication at Loyola Marymount University and the founder of CSR Global Consulting LLC, a firm dedicated to helping sport organizations develop strategic plans to effectively communicate their corporate social responsibility efforts. Anderson has become a major voice in the conversation regarding sport and social change and his work has been featured in several media outlets...

Season 6, Episode 9

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the broomstick wedding ritual with Tyler D. Parry. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University located in West Long Branch, New Jersey and Parry is Associate Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada in the Department of Interdisciplinary, Gender, and Ethnic Studies. Parry’s research focuses on slavery in the Americas, cultures in the African Diaspora, the historical memory of slavery in the Americas, cultures in the African Diaspora and historical memory. This conversation is...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the origins and impact of hip hop with Anwar Uhuru as part of a series of episodes to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Hip Hop. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and an affiliate faculty member with the departments of Philosophy and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Their research focuses on human value based on race, gender, sexuality, and ableism with publicans in the Journal of Hip Ho...

In this episode Hettie V. Williams discusses the African Presence in Latin America with Luis Mora-Ballesteros. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Mora-Ballesteros is Lecturer of Spanish and Literatures of Latin America and the Caribbean in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Monmouth University. This conversation focuses primarily on the African influences on Latin American dance, literature, and culture including some discussion on how these influences also represent connections to the afterlives of slavery. This is particularly evident in the song, dance, and music culture of the African descended communities of Latin...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the Golden Age of Hip Hop in the 1980s and 1990s with Professor Claude Taylor. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Taylor is Director for Academic Transition and Inclusion and Professor of communication and media at Monmouth University. Taylor also works with the First To Fly program at Monmouth that focuses on the development and support of first generation college students. He is a popular professor and his area of teaching interests include race, rhetoric, and discourse. This episode is one of a series of episodes this...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Haiti and Black internationalism with Leslie M. Alexander. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Alexander is the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of history at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of several essays, articles, book chapters, and books about the African Diaspora including her latest text Fear of a Black Republic: Haiti and the Birth of Black Internationalism in the United States recently published by the University of Illinois Press. The groundbreaking text is the subject of our conversation as Alexander elaborate on...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black in graduate school with Lauren T. Rorie. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Rorie is currently an adjunct professor in the perspectives program at Monmouth. She discusses her experiences as a Black student at the undergraduate and graduate level and provides Black graduate students with advice on how to navigate PWIs as graduate students or part time instructors in their post graduate life. Rorie has recently been accepted into several prestigious graduate programs in history.  

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses the Black Church in film and television with Dr. Anwar Uhuru. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies and an affiliate faculty member with the departments of Philosophy and Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Their research focuses on human value based on race, gender, sexuality, and ableism with publicans in the Journal of Hip Hop Studies, The APA Newsletter, Philosophy and the Black Experience, and Radical Philosophy Review. Th...

In this episode Hettie V. Williams discusses mentoring and the African/African American experience with Julius O. Adekunle. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Adekunle is Professor of African history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Adekunle is the author/editor of several books including Converging Identities: Blackness in the Modern African Diaspora, Religion in Politics: Secularism and National Integration in Modern Nigeria, and Culture and Customs of Rwanda. His area of teaching/research is religion and culture in Nigeria with a focus on the Colonial Era and the...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses race, masculinity, Black men, and policing with Dr. Karanja Keita Carroll. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Carroll is a Lecturer in Black and Latinx Studies at as a member of the Department of Black & Latinx Studies at Baruch College (CUNY). Carroll’s teaching and research interests revolve around African-centered theory and methodology with an emphasis on social and psychological theory. He is also an activist and advocate of Prison Education having taught at various facilities including SCI-Chester, Shawangunk (NYSDOC), Sullivan (NYDOC) and Brookwood Secure Center (NY...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses empowering young Black males with Dr. Vernon Smith. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University and Smith is Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Counseling and Leadership. Smith teaches courses centered on social justice advocacy in educational counseling and has published several papers on the subject including in the Journal of Professional School Counseling, The Family Journal, and in the Journal of School Counseling. He is a passionate scholar and teacher interested in the issues concerning Black youth in...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses race, gender, and sexuality in Renaissance by Beyonce Knowles with Dr. Anwar Uhuru. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Uhuru is Assistant Professor in the Department of African American History at Wayne State University in Detroit. He is an expert in gender and culture studies working on a forthcoming book about reparations. Uhuru is a frequent guest on the show and one of the founding members of BADFU at Monmouth University where he was previously employed as an Assistant Professor of African American Literature in the...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses jailing and mass incarceration with Dr. Melanie D. Newport. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Newport is an Assistant Professor of history at the University of Connecticut and the author of This is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2022). This conversation is structured mainly around Newport’s recently published book on jailing with a focus on the Cook County Jail in Chicago. In this text, Newport argues that jailing has been central to the mass incarceration project in th...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black music, culture, and criticism with Dr. Guthrie Ramsey. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Ramsey is Emeritus Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of Who Hears Here? On Black Music, Pasts and Present published by the University of California Press in 2022. Ramsey is a noted pianist, composer, and Professor of African American music, history, and culture. He is also a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ramsey has authored several books on African...

In this episode, Hettie. V. Williams discusses Black women and roller skating with Lauren T. Rorie. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Rorie is an Adjunct Instructor in the Interdisciplinary Perspectives Program at Monmouth. Rorie’s work centers on Black women in art, culture and the Africa Diaspora including popular culture. She is currently interested in and writing about the history of Black women in roller skating, the Black freedom struggle, and community building. She finds that there are connections between social movements and Black recreation such as with activities surrounding roller skating.   

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black soldiers and families through the Civil War era with Holly A. Pinheiro, Jr. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Pinheiro is Assistant Professor of African American history at Furman University and the author of The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice published by the University of Georgia Press in 2022. This conversation is focused on Pinheiro’s discussion of Black free born soldiers from Philadelphia, their war time service, and post-war attempts to secure their pensions including how the Civil War impa...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses a short documentary film on Asbury Park, New Jersey titled “The Great Migration and Asbury Park” with Erin Fleming, and Claude Taylor. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University, Fleming is the Director of Production Services at Monmouth, and Taylor is a Professor of Communication and Director for Academic Transition and Inclusion at Monmouth. Fleming is the producer and director of the short film “Asbury Park and the Great Migration.” This short film features Claude Taylor, who was born and raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and Madonna Carter J...

In this episode Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Christopher Willoughby. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History at Monmouth University. Willoughby is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History of Medicine and Health at Pitzer College and the author of Masters of Health: Racial Science and Slavery in U.S. Medical Schools published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2022. He is also the editor of Medicine and Healing in the Age of Slavery. This conversation focuses primarily on Willoughby’s Masters of Health and the disturbing history of ra...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black and Asian solidarity with Dr. Zaneta Rago-Craft founding Director of the Intercultural Center at Monmouth University. Dr. Z identifies as multiracial and tells us some about her own Asian ancestry. She speaks here as both a DEI expert and from her personal experiences as a woman of color in the academy. This is Part II of our series on Black and Asian solidarity. We find this to be a necessary ongoing conversation, at the moment, with the rise of Anti-Asian hate that has emerged with the COVID-19 pandemic. There is an...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses Black and Asian solidarity with Dr. Rekha Datta. This conversation is a part of a series that will run on This Week over the next season of the show. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University in the Department of History and Anthropology and Dr. Datta is a Professor of Political Science in the Department of Political Science at Monmouth University, and the former Interim Provost at the institution, she is also the Freed Endowed Chair in Social Sciences. Datta speaks from her own experience here as an...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Reighan Gillam about race and media in Brazil. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Gillam is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. She is also the author of Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media published by the University of Illinois Press in 2022. This conversation is focused on her recent book Visualizing Black Lives. 

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Professor Kristin Henning about the criminalization of Black youth in the U.S. and the juvenile justice system. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Henning is an attorney and nationally recognized trainer and consultant on race, adolescence and policing. She is currently the Blume Professor of Law and Director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at the Georgetown University Law Center and previously the lead attorney of the Juvenile Unit at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia. Henning is also...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Drs. Heide Estes and Mary Rambaran-Olm about race and Medieval Studies. Estes is Professor of English in the Department of English at Monmouth University where she regularly teaches medieval literature, ecocriticism, history of the English language, and linguistics. She is also Chair of the University Qualifications Committee and a member of the Faculty Association and Inclusion working group. Estes is also editor of the journal Medieval Ecocriticisms and the author of Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination published by Amsterdam University Press in 2017. Rambaran-Olm is a literary...

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Erika D. Gault about digital Black Christians and Hip Hop. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Gault is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gault’s scholarly work focuses on the intersection of religious history, technology, and urban Black life in post-industrial America. She is also the author of Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop (New York University Press, 2022). The focus of this show is on Dr...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Professor Melissa Ziobro. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Ziobro is a Specialist Professor in Public History at Monmouth. This discussion centers on the history of Black women in the U.S. military as this is a subject that does need to be studied further by scholars and public historians more generally. See below for Professor Ziobro’s recommendations/sources on Black women in the U.S. military. 

Resources on Black Women in U.S. Military History: 

Glory in Thei...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Kerry Rizzuto about book banning and multicultural children’s books that focus on the African American experience. Williams is an Associate Professor of African American history at Monmouth University. Rizzuto is an Associate Professor in the School of Education at Monmouth University. She has shared her children’s book recommendations with us below. 

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water Nikkole Hannah Jones and Renee Watson

The 1619 Project’s lyrical picture book in verse chronicles the consequences of slavery and the history of Black r...

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams discusses with Dr. Grace D. Gipson Black women in gaming. Gipson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her PhD in African American Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. Her research focus is feminist/pop culture and Black popular culture more specifically. Gipson’s current book project seeks to explore Black female identities as personified in comics and fandom culture. She is also working on a project on how online Black female academic and popular networks produce cultural and te...

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams discusses African Americans and American labor history with Dr. Brian Greenberg Emeritus Professor of History at Monmouth University. Williams is an Associate Professor of History at Monmouth University and Greenberg is one of the foremost scholars of U.S. labor history. He is also the author of Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of Hospital Workers’ Union Local 1199 (University of Illinois Press, 1989) with Leon Fink. Greenberg is also the author of several other books including The Dawning of American Labor: The New Republic to Industrial Age (Blackwell, 2017), Social History of the Un...

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams discusses the basics of critical race theory with her Monmouth colleagues Drs. Anwar Uhuru and Manuel Chavez. Dr. Uhuru is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English at Monmouth University and Dr. Chavez is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Uhuru specializes in African Diaspora literatures, gender, sexuality and critical race studies while Dr. Chavez is a Lecturer of Philosophy who specializes in the philosophy of race, gender and decolonial theory. This conversation focuses on the basics of critical race theory (CRT) including...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Clifford Mason about Black Shakespearean actors and Denzel Washington as Macbeth. Williams is a Professor of African American history at Monmouth University and Mason is a celebrated playwright, actor, director, critic and author who has written 34 plays. He is also the author of Macbeth in Harlem: Black Theater in America from the Beginning to Raison in the Son (Rutgers University Press, 2020). Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth is the first film completed without his brother Ethan Coen and the film has opened to positive reviews. Mason discusses the fa...

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses death, love, and life with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. Williams is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Dr. Griffin is inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University where she is also the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is also the author of several books and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Griffin's book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (W.W. Norton, 2021) is the main focus of this...