S10 E191: “Grandma’s Got A Gun!?”: A Forceful History of Black Resistance with Author and Historian Dr. Kelli Carter Jackson

Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” Dr. Gee discuss how in her book, We Refuse, historian Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. Dr. Carter Jackson explains the dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism.

Dr. Gee and Dr. Carter Jackson also explore the fact that Black men are being killed in the streets but Black women are being killed in the private space of their own homes. Hear about how “Black flight” is connected to joy in that Black folks needs space to get away from regular white supremacist life. Finally, Dr. Carter Jackson also shows her enthusiasm for dolls, and especially Black dolls with their unique cultural significance.

Kellie Carter Jackson is the Michael and Denise ‘68 Associate Professor of Africana Studies and the Chair of the Africana Studies Department Wellesley College. She is the author We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press) and of the award winning book, Force & Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence . Force and Freedom was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, a winner of the James H. Broussard Best First Book Prize, and a finalist for the Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Prize Award for 2019. The Washington Post listed Force and Freedom as one of 13 books to read on African American history. Her interview, “A History of Violent Protest” on Slate’s What’s Next podcast was listed as one of the best of 2020. She has also given a Tedx talk on “Why Black Abolitionists Matter.”

Her essays have been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, the Boston Globe, CNN, and a host of other outlets. She has been featured in numerous documentaries for Netflix (African Queens: Njinga and Stamped From the Beginning), PBS, MSNBC, CNN, and AppleTV’s “Lincoln’s Dilemma.” She has also been interviewed on Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, MSNBC, Democracy Now, SkyNews (UK) Time, Vox, The Huff Post, the BBC, Boston Public Radio, Al Jazeera International, Slate, and countless podcasts.

Carter Jackson loves a good podcast and her Radiotopia family! She is Executive Producer and Host of the award winning “You Get a Podcast! The Study of the Queen of Talk,” formerly known as “Oprahdemics” with co-host Leah Wright Rigueur and a co-host on the podcast, “This Day in Political Esoteric History” with Jody Avirgan and Nicole Hemmer.

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