Walking Harlem: An Interview with Karen Taborn
Today on the blog, Kate Papacosma talks to Karen Taborn about the process of developing her book, Walking Harlem: The Ultimate Guide to the Cultural Capital of Black America.
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To Build a Mature Society: The Lasting Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” Speech
By Kristopher Burrell
At Riverside Church in Harlem on April 4, 1967, exactly one year before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a blistering and sophisticated critique of U. S. intervention in Vietnam. His “Beyond Vietnam” speech was prescient in ways that continue to haunt our society into the present day.
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New Podcast Series, Hosted by Gotham
Today on Gotham, something different: a podcast.
From now on, we'll occasionally be featuring not just written but oral interviews on the blog, with authors of recent books dealing with New York City history. The series is a partnership with the New Books Network, a consortium of academic podcast channels whose very admirable goal is, like ours here at The Gotham Center, to raise the level of public discourse by introducing serious research to much wider audiences than normally get scholarly work.
Today, Beth Harpaz, editor of CUNY SUM, interviews the esteemed Cuban scholar and sociologist Lisandro Pérez about his new book, Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York.
Listen to their interview here.
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The Rise of Billy Rose: An Interview with Mark Cohen
Today on Gotham, editor Katie Uva interviews Mark Cohen, author of Not Bad for Delancey Street: The Rise of Billy Rose about the legendary New York City showman and his legacy.
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The Problem We All Live With: An Interview with Sarita Daftary-Steel
Today on the blog, editor Molly Rosner speaks to Sarita Daftary-Steel, founder of the East New York Oral History Project, an interview project documenting the experiences of people who lived in East New York during a decade of rapid change from 1960-70.
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Community Control and the 1968 Teacher Strikes in NYC at 50: A Roundtable
Introduction by Nick Juravich
Fifty years ago this fall, the United Federation of Teachers went on strike three times, closing NYC public schools for more than six weeks. The legacy of these strikes continues to reverberate through the city's schools today.
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Remembrance of Things Not Yet Past: A Report from “Difficult Histories / Public Spaces: The Challenge of Monuments in NYC and the Nation”
By Arinn Amer
A year after white nationalists descended on Charlottesville, Virginia in a deadly riot they framed as a protest against the planned removal of a bronze rendering of Robert E. Lee from Emancipation Park, monuments loom large in our national consciousness. With new memorials and markers raising awareness of America’ dark history of racial terror and hundreds of Confederate flags and generals retreating from public view even as thousands more remain firmly entrenched, the incredible power of the stories we tell about the past in shared physical space has never been more apparent.
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Working for the Public: Black Firefighters and the FDNY
Reviewed by Nick Juravich
David Goldberg’s Black Firefighters in the FDNY opens in court, where Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the Eastern District ruled in 2012 that the New York City Fire Department “knowingly and intentionally implemented and maintained racially discriminatory hiring processes throughout its history.” It is this history of segregation, and of resistance to it, that Goldberg chronicles masterfully, from firehouse fistfights to fraternal organizations to federal litigation. Black firefighters faced tremendous obstacles; as Goldberg explains in the introduction, “no group of white workers better exemplifies the prolonged nature of white resistance and recalcitrance to Black equality more than white firefighters and their politically powerful and influential union, the International Association of Firefighters.” Black firefighters responded by building “a tradition of resistance, militancy, and race consciousness” both inside and beyond their profession, which generated “intergenerational activism, civic and community-centered coalition building, and the immersion and intersection of their struggle with local and national Black freedom movements.”
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Lincoln’s Near Duel-to-the-Death with an Irish Rival
By Niall O'Dowd
Abraham Lincoln’s long-standing and colorful history with the children of Ireland played a major role in his political rise, his presidency, and ultimately the Union victory in the Civil War. Much of that history has never been told, such as the near duel between Lincoln and rival — and future Union general — James Shields, reminiscent of Hamilton — Burr.
Excerpted from Lincoln and the Irish: The Untold Story of How the Irish Helped Abraham Lincoln Save the Union with author's permission. Copyright © 2018 Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
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Basketball and Black Pride: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Resident Organizing in New York City Public Housing
By Nick Juravich
In the summer of 1968, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar — known at the time as Lew Alcindor, and just barely twenty-one years old — was already a basketball legend. Impossibly tall and incredibly talented, he had led New York City’s Power Academy to 71 straight wins before joining John Wooden’s UCLA Bruins. After a year on the “freshman team,” he had led the varsity to back-to-back NCAA titles, winning tournament MVP both times (he would add another title and MVP in 1969). And that summer, if you were a kid growing up in one of the New York City Housing Authority’s (NYCHA) developments, you could meet the legend in person.
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