Behind the Veil of Lynching and Jim Crow on the December 12th Left of Black
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype© by Koritha Mitchell, Professor of English at The Ohio State University and author of Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship 1890-1930 (University of Illinois Press). Neal and Mitchell discuss how black playwrights during the early 20th century used one-act plays to offer response to racial trauma and violence. Neal and Mitchell also contemplate why black artists are often misunderstood in their intent, where their art is often labeled “protest art” when it instead functions as a form of community expression. Lastly, Mitchell analyzes the first generation of black cross-over stars and distinguishes between Tyler Perry the stage performer and the filmmaker.
Later Neal is joined via Skype© by Leslie Brown, Associate Professor of History at Williams College and a researcher on the project Behind the Veil: Documenting the African-American Experience in the Jim Crow South which has been recently digitized at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies. Brown discusses the ethnographic research she did to prepare for the archive and the remaining accessibility gap to materials such as these. Brown also discusses the recent interest in the Jim Crow era.
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Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke’s Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.
Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.
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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack
Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan
Follow Koritha Mitchell on Twitter: @ProfKori
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