UC Davis experts: African American issues
The following UC Davis faculty members are available to speak on topics related to African American issues.
Class, politics and race
Family, religion and society
Popular culture
Historical topics
CLASS, POLITICS AND RACE
Race, ethnicity and urban communities
Bruce Haynes, UC Davis associate professor of sociology, specializes in the study of race and ethnic group relations within the context of urban and suburban community development. He is the author of "Red Lines, Black Spaces: The Politics of Race and Space in a Black Middle-Class Suburb" (Yale University Press, 2001), a case study of race and class politics in a New York City suburban community. He is currently writing a book on black Jews in the United States. Contact: Bruce Haynes, Sociology, (530) 754-7127, bdhaynes@ucdavis.edu..
FAMILY, RELIGION AND SOCIETY
Black family stress
UC Davis human development professor Rand Conger can talk about how economic hardship creates stress in African American families. Conger has been conducting research on the consequences of stress in families for over 20 years. In a recent report, he demonstrated that economic hardship has the same damaging impact on family relationships and child development in rural and urban African American families as in the European American families that he had previously studied in rural Iowa. Conger is an expert on social and economic stress, life course development, and family interaction processes. Contacts: Rand Conger, Human Development, (530) 757-8454 (lab), rdconger@ucdavis.edu).
The black music and church experience
Milmon F. Harrison, an associate professor of African American and African studies at UC Davis, is a sociologist who looks at roles and meanings of Christianity and the black church in the African American experience. Harrison can talk about African American gospel music and the so called "promise movement." His book, "Name It and Claim It! The Word of Faith Movement, The Faith Message and the Disestablishment of Doctrinal Meaning," concerns the Word of Faith movement. He is also writing a new book on prosperity Christianity. Contact: Milmon Harrison, African American and African Studies, (530) 752-1548, mfharrison@ucdavis.edu.
POPULAR CULTURE
Popular culture
How do black images influence American popular culture? Where do persistent rumors or urban legends in the African American community begin? Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies and a professor of African American studies, can answer such questions. A nationally respected folklorist, Turner is the author of four books, "Crafted Lines: Stories and Studies of African American Quilters," "Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America," cowritten with Gary Allan Fine, "Ceramic Uncles and Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture" and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine: Rumor in African American Culture." Contact: Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies, (530) 752-6068, paturner@ucdavis.edu.
Blacks in film and TV
Christine Acham, UC Davis associate professor of African American and African studies, can talk about the history of blacks in African American film and television. She can also talk about contemporary film and TV trends in regards to blacks, African Americans in the film and television industry, and popular culture. She the author of "Revolution Televised: Prime Time and the Struggle for Black Power." Contact: Christine Acham, African American and African Studies, (530) 754-6619, acham@ucdavis.edu.
African American music history
Sandra Graham, an assistant professor of music at UC Davis, can talk about the history of African American music. Her specialty is in Negro spirituals and how they evolved from folk music on the plantation before the Civil War to concert music on the stage, eventually becoming a popular American tradition. She is writing a book about The Fisk Jubilee Singers and the concert spiritual. Contact: Sandra Graham, Music, (530) 752-2603, sjgraham@ucdavis.edu.
HISTORICAL TOPICS
America's mixed-race history
UC Davis historian Clarence Walker specializes in black American history from 1450 to the present. He can talk about how the reality of a mixed-race America belied the 19th-century political and cultural images of the United States as a "white" nation. His latest book is "Mongrel Nation: The America Begotten by Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings." Contact: Clarence Walker, History, (530) 752-0779, cewalker@ucdavis.edu.
Blacks and Indians in U.S. history
UC Davis Native American studies professor emeritus Jack Forbes can cover a wide range of topics in regards to African American history in the United States. He can discuss African American-Indian relations, ethnicity and ethnohistory. He wrote "Black Africans and Native Americans: Race, Caste and Color in the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples" (1988) as well as articles on the evolution of the "red-black people," African Americans in the Far West and Spanish-speaking African Americans of the Southwest. Forbes can also talk about community and development, racism, and colonialism. Contact: Jack Forbes, Native American Studies, (530) 752-3626, jdforbes@ucdavis.edu.
History of black women's activism
UC Davis women's history scholar Lisa Materson can talk about African American women's political activism from the 19th through the late 20th centuries. She can talk about black women's involvement in the abolitionist, suffrage, anti-lynching, uplift and civil-rights movements. Her latest book is "For the Freedom of Her Race: Black Women and Electroal Politics in Illinois, 1877-1932." Contact: Lisa Materson, History, (530) 752-9991, lgmaterson@ucdavis.edu.
Media contacts:
Claudia Morain, News Service, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
Last updated July 24, 2009
