Conversation with our esteemed speakers that im eager to introduce you to today. Im victoria murray is, a New York Times and usa today author of more than 30 novels, the personal library and the first ladies. Both novels were cowritten with her writing. Marie benedict victoria is also have been nominated for numerous naacp awards for outstanding literature and she won that award in 2016 for her social commentary stand your ground. The first ladies was targeted. Thousand and 22,000, 23 book of the year and five of marys said deaf seven deadly sins have been made into lifetime movies produced t. D. Jakes with almost 3 million books in print. Victoria is one of the countrys top africanamerican and contemporary authors. Pamela newkirk. Author, journalist and professor of Pamela Newkirk is a multifaceted two scholar who has published a variety of works within the veil black journalists, white media a love no less and letters. Black america spectacle. The astonishing life of osama anger and her most recent book Diversity Inc the failed promise. 1,000,000,000 industry pamela received Pulitzer Prize as part of new york newsdays reporting team for spotting news for coverage of a fatal subway. In in 1993 she joined the faculty of nyu and continue contributing articles to numerous publications, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, columbia journalism review, the nation, arte news, essence and the civil rights blog to defend online that is pamela. Thabiti lewis perform double duty for us during the conference this year. Yesterday, he served as host for our virtual scholarly papers presentation and back with us today to share his insights and breadth of knowledge. He is a professor of english and interim associate vice chancellor of Academic Affairs at Washington State university, vancouver. He is also the editor of conversations with tony kaye bambara and ballers of new school race and sports in america. At and last but definitely least is historian Kahlil Gibran muhammad. He has served as director the Schomburg Center for Research Black culture in harlem in late 2015, he joined the faculty of Harvards Kennedy school as professor of history, race and public policy. He has also he was also hired as a Suzanne Young mary professor at the Radcliffe Institute advanced study. He released the condemnation of blackness race crime and the making of modern ah of of modern urban america. In 2010, which was awarded the John Hope Franklin publication prize from the American Studies Association in 2011, muhammads contemporary on the commentary on the racial past of the United States and contemporary policing and criminality was published in the New York Times, Washington Post, National Radio and others. Please welcome our guest. Over here, which you also feel so disconnected. Okay, so thank you all again for being here. So the focus of our discussion today is writers letters to america how black writers texts may be viewed as letters that chronicle the history of america from what Toni Morrison calls black gaze. These texts provide insight into the monumental changes and pivotal events that have impacted the history palettes, civil rights achievements and of blacks in america the history. Letter writing dates back to ancient civilizations. The earliest known letters were sent by, of course, the ancient who use hieroglyphs. A newsweek article written by Malcolm James discusses how quote historians depend on the written record letters left behinds are invaluable evidence of how was once lived. Gaps in the Historical Records have always existed as. American slaves were often illiterate, often by laws, and sometimes by laws that threaten them with death. The epistolary record to free people. And in most cases that free white people. When reflect on how dearly we would cherish written by people in bondage or any people who through circumstances of history were voiceless, we begin to grasp the preciousness of the written word, end quotes. So to begin each of you personify the idea letters documenting, the changes, pivotal events, and courageous people offering, and a better understanding of experience in america. So my first question is will historians of the future be served by . Our generation of writers and by your work in particular . How do you give voice to the voiceless through your writing and research . And pamela, id like you to start us off because your work a love no less, two centuries of africanamerican love letters and letters from black america speaks directly to this question. And then, of course, i would like the rest of you to respond as well. I thank you, dana. And thank you for being here today. I first wanted to compile book of love letters. Yes, i wanted to compile a book of africanamerican love letters because those letters had often left out of epistolary collections. Are so many books, letters, and they almost always excluded the letters of African Americans, and particularly letters that reflected romantic lives. And in that first book i began with the letters of the enslaved, because as you said, it was illegal right, to write letters in when African Americans were separated from their loved ones, those who could write and, even those who could not would someone to help them compose letter across, you know, plantations, states. And so they continued to communicate, kate, with their loved ones. So i its an important a really part of our history. Our our collective history to have the evidence of of that kind of bond. And it it does more than anything to to reflect full humanity because. These letters are not written for everyone. And to see their intimate reflections of emotions. And i think its probably the the truest reflection of of who we are and of about our desires. So i hope that answered your question. Yeah yeah. So you like i said, you got us started and which is which is great. So you know i would like to, to toss that question out each of you. Like how because you know the of letter writing is, is integral to our and is able to document our history our work the work that we do you may not be you dear john, but letters that we write are actually texts that we create and we look to preserve for our future. So when we think about, you know, our work in terms of the idea of which you led us off with so well, how do each of you, your work, give voice to the voiceless through your writing and Research Research . Ill take a stab at this in in my book ballers in the new school race sport in american culture. I was really looking at the turn of the 20th century and depictions of africanamericans in popular and in sport culture. You have this notion of heroes and people becoming familiar and the majority of people writing about and reporting and giving narrative are white journalists and. And so those notions are, what were, you know, violent thugs, you know these different figures. And so in ballers, as i interrogate this notion of White Supremacy in a racial contract using charles millss work and. How the you know, it functioned in all these different validity. I want it to have a moment in the book where i literally write a letter to my cousin very you know, inspired by, you know, James Baldwins letter to nephew and really providing in a book that is very much in a hip hop ethos challenging and providing counternarrative its and very much the face of of of a lot of stereotypes and a false notions a real intimate conversation with my young and just in talking to him about the power of, education and what is possible and our family lives history and relaying my vulnerabilities but giving voice not only to him but speaking to i think especially in american culture, where theres so anti intellectual ism and theres this nihilism and the thought that the only way to be successful is through sport, culture that you need not feel about your intellectual prowess. And i want you to really lean into and and so kind of having a conversation back with him revealing my own engaging my own vulnerabilities but encouraging him. But it wasnt just to him. It was its also a letter to to young black women and men regarding these this false notion of of antiintellectualism or sport as being the only way forward. And so and then just trying to outline to him. What are the challenges that exist and we can overcome that you can overcome that he was really struggling and this guys done amazing but so that that was the the impetus was the book itself is a larger letter but theres a letter within within the text itself. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. So none of my books have the letters them. I write fiction. And so i just make this stuff up. But what i thats an interesting question because i think in fiction, im able to reach people in a way that doesnt feel as if im them. Do you know what i mean . Not telling you what to do. Im presenting who we are. And so in my and the fiction and if youre talking about a letter to america the majority, although they wont the majority much longer, but the majority for now im my books show people who we are here we are this is who we are and this is how you can get to know. And i can give you an example of what i mean by that i took a class i took a lot of classes at the university of iowas writing program, and there was nobody else among the 500 students who had skin that looked like mine. And no problem, because went there to learn. So no problem. And so in one of the workshops i had written my first chapter of, my second novel, and it was about a black woman. And this is fiction so shes stuck in traffic and shes in her bmw down, writing down the l. A. Freeway. And the first critique from one of the other 14 people in the class is in the class. Her first critique was, id like to see a little less beautiful. And then does she have to drive bmw . Because this woman actually i dont know people who have a bmw and i just couldnt believe she sat there and said that to me. But then i realized that the majority is exposed to so little of us that our stories can be a letter them. And in indicating and saying this who we are. I am here now get to know us absolutely through. So my stock and trade as a historian is often letters and can be as as pamelas already suggested, a really evocative and expressive of both the intimate lives interiority the kind of literary space writers fill in for because we often cant know what people feel or think. And so theyre very precious to historians if youre able to letters within the archive or the research that youre trying do and i guess to maybe illustrate this. When i was working the condemnation of blackness, i took the approach that any archive that either a published material going back to the late 19th century or actual archives organizations or individuals, i would just sort of do a needle in a haystack approach. I was trying to make sense of something that wasnt obvious, and by that i mean we knew a lot about what was happening in the south during the era of chain gangs and convict leasing. But we didnt have much knowledge of what it meant to be a black migrant or a black person living in new york city at, the turn of the 20th century, when it came to criminal justice encounters, we knew some of. But i was interested in sort of what was what were the discursive ways in which black people encountered oppression. These are v their criminal nature. So one of the biggest archives it turns out to really get at this the naacp records at the library of congress they we see the hundreds of letters from people who were encountering new york citys criminal justice machinery, either through policing or in the state around the country and in w. A. S. P. , headquartered here in new york, which is why they were more prominently known at the time in this in this space and those letters were incredible for two reasons. One, there was back forth correspondence, and so youd have people appealing simply help. I need help. Ive been arrested on trumped up charges. Im completely innocent. Please send a lawyer to to assist me. Others were i did it. But theyre throwing book at me and the white guy i did it with is getting out scot free. So you can imagine the range of grievances that were appealing to the naacp for support. But what was really interesting was the naacp response to many of these people and in that way, the story that you talked about, the future. So for me as a historian, the naacp unwillingness to help people were guilty of something because the issue was that innocence was the only currency that they were interested in investing limited and precious resources in tells us at this moment in our history and well tell future readers of that work the degree to which the oppression that weve experience inside has lasted longer in because of some of the choices that we made in trying to manage our people to be respect in light of the oppressions that weve experienced for centuries. And that was a period of black respectability politics, right . Yeah. On steroids, right on steroids, yeah. So so any case letters for me have always been incredibly revealing. And, you know, at the schomburg, we spent a lot of time only preserving such letters and the correspondence amongst people who are important to us as, our ancestors, but also making sure that we curated collections of letters that people could really dive into an intimate portrait of people. And i think that kind of exhibition and archival preservation work is essential for us. You as at some point none of us in this room will be here. But those who will come behind us can learn and it can just add. Its also a not only for institutions preserve these letters, but for us to preserve the letters of our loved ones. So many these precious relics get thrown away. You know, people move, someone dies and they kind of throw them away when they really should end up in a repository like the schomburg or, you know, some other institution. They really are irreplaceable relics of of our history absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for that. So just expanding on what each of you have said so where you see your your work and your scholarship contributing to the canon of black history, do you see as or at all as documentary. Thats a trick question. So you that yeah ill jump in i think im thinking about the conversations with tony kaye bambara work as you know really capturing her voice are really important. Black feminist nationalist woman is a figure and allowing the public to be able to hear her voice all in one space outside my own commentary around what i think about, you know, these collection of of of interviews of interviews. But i think absolutely is important to the field i also complete it a documentary on chicago in the black Arts Movement and coproduce and co kodak codirected just really capturing important very important moment and so i think you know that theres a trove of stories that need to be told that as scholars i think too often people are trying to up with really witty and cute stuff. But the work is right there, you know, whether its, you know, examining the National BlackWriters Organization that preceded obasi, the aacm im just thinking about chicago in that particular project and its worldwide impact right and how so many people and in black arts were coming chicago and moving to other spaces throughout midwest and the impact of chicago for example on you know, the black dramatists, you know, organizations, etc. So i do see my work is doing in some ways engaging documentary. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I mean, yeah, for me, i became journalist to tell our stories to. I became a journalist to tell our stories and to share those unrepresented facets of our identity experiences. So all my books have ive sought to contribute to our history both of the books of letters, of course, are part of the historical record. But even my book about, ota benga, it was to illumined a a a chapter of history in new york city and how black people lived in new york city and it was that this young, beautiful boy, the congo, ends up being displayed at in the bronx zoo monkey house with an orangutan in 1906. And how it became this sensation that praised by the New York Times. So it it it shines a light on the history of black people at a certain moment in time and helps explain a lot about where we are today as well. Absolutely. And letters were a very important part of that book and the want to add anything ill just add that i mean one of the things that ive become i mean, as ive matured turned 50 last year. So new new space is just a really rich appreciation for the different modes of expression cultural production that. We collectively have and its obvious i mean, im not saying anything new, but for me in particular i mean, my, my as a as a historian, as an i spent a lot of time you know was sort of social science either formally journalistic social science or my own attempt to make sense of certain kinds of facts, whether they are past or present. And so it can be mind numbing to a degree, but what ive come to appreciate is just how much those facts up in the work of creative like novelists and dramatists and musicians and, artists. And i just at this age of my life, ive just come to appreciate that were all engaged in the same work and that we can say many different truths through different means of which historians of the future and of the future will mine our words and our ideas and the breadcrumb of our lives to make new meanings for our future generations. And thats just very exciting. Its a way for us to know that our legacies will live on. Yeah, because when we think about what we when we look at any. You know, through our history, the history is documented by the artist so thats where thats where go to find out everything so the work that you are doing in each of your capacities so important to that document to me you know of our lives tony famously that the lives of black people explored in literature was viewed by the mainstream as having no value. If not centered through a white gaze. So how do each of you in your own work reposition the vision