Visionary Lecture Series

  Date

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

 Time

6:00pm

 Location

In-Person or Online

Gold Room, Memorial Union

ASU Tempe Campus

 

The Struggle in Black and Brown: Comparative Civil Rights and 21st Century Race Relations
This visionary lecture will feature Dr. Brian Behnken and his newest book. Behnken is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the U.S. Latino/a Studies Program at Iowa State University. His research and teaching focuses on comparative race relations, civil rights, and twentieth century American social movements. He is the author of Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) and the edited collection The Struggle in Black and Brown: African American and Mexican American Relations during the Civil Rights Era (University of Nebraska Press, 2011)

About the Book
African American and Mexican American relations occupy an increasingly important role in the public life of the United States. From politics to criminal justice, from labor to academia, black-brown relations matter. Historian Brian Behnken carefully examines the complex and multifaceted realities that impact black-Latino/a relations, and revises our view of both the civil rights struggle and interethnic relations in recent history. In this Visionary Lecture, Behnken offers information from his publications, especially his recently published collection of essay entitled The Struggle in Black and Brown. The book focuses primarily on the Southwest, where Mexican Americans and African Americans have had a long history of civil rights activism. The book is the first truly nuanced picture of the conflict and cooperation, goodwill and animosity, unity and disunity that played a critical role in the history of both black and brown relations and the battle for civil rights.