The Black Eagle of Harlem: An Interview with Billy Tooma
Today on the blog, editor Kelly Morgan talks to Billy Tooma, writer and producer of the 2017 documentary, The Black Eagle of Harlem. The film examines the life of Hubert Julian, an immigrant aviator living in Harlem during the 1920s.
Read MoreIn his most recent book, Clarence Taylor, dean of the history of the civil rights movement in New York, looks at black resistance to police brutality in the city, and institutional efforts to hold the NYPD accountable, since the late 1930s and '40s.
Listen to this interview here.
Read MoreWalking 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.
Read MoreTo 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.
Read MoreNew 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreCommunity 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.
Read MoreRemembrance 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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