Unpacking History Interviews

Professor Aaron Bekemeyer discusses the complicated history of police unionization.

Professor Samantha Pinto discusses her book, Infamous Bodies Early Black Women’s Celebrity and the Afterlives of Rights.

Professor Ruth Colker discusses her 2022 Utah Law Review article, “The White Supremacist Constitution.”

Professor Jason Morgan Ward discusses his book Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965.

Professor Olivarius uses yellow fever to frame how wealth, class, and race developed in the economic powerhouse antebellum city of New Orleans.

Prof. Horne explains his thesis that religion, which supported so much colonial expansion, gave way to race, specifically whiteness, as a way of organizing conquest.

Prof. Thompson explains the role of Confederate monuments, what they symbolize, and to whom their message is aimed.

Professor James Oakes discusses his book, The Crooked Path to Abolition Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution

Jacob Glick discusses the routes of radicalization, the motivations and rationale that brought many to attempt a violent insurrection in 2020.

By examining the local history of Barbour County in Alabama, Professor Cowie develops a thesis of white freedom which dependent upon the oppression of others.

Taifha Natalee Alexander discusses the how Critical Race Theory has become a rallying cry for anti-anti-racism and led to the organization of local, state, and national interventions against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.

Professor Bell Hardaway discusses how police unions developed slowly over time to their rapid growth in the 1960s and how police unions transitioned from advocating for labor and wages to challenging oversight and accountability policies.