Free People of Color Lecture Series looks at a key year for Black women and civil rights
This year, the Free People of Color Lecture Series has been hosted by the UC Davis School of Law Aoki Center on Critical Race and Nation Studies and the Department of History. The lectures explore the rights of people of color in the United States after the Civil War and inquire how that history continues to shape our thinking today. The series has brought in leading scholars from around the country.
This week, the Free People of Color Lecture Series featured Dr. Yatta Kiazolu, who is a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow in Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego. Her research interests are at the intersection of contemporary African diaspora history, African American history, and Women and Gender studies.
The title of Dr. Kiazolu’s talk was "Civil Rights, Internationalism, and African American Women's Fight for Full Citizenship, 1960." Here is the abstract of her paper:
"By 1960, African decolonization on the world stage presented greater opportunity to actualize new political terrain in the interest of people of African descent. African American leaders made connections between the struggles for desegregation at home and decolonization abroad. Committed to this cause, the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) under the tenure of then-President Dorothy Height, emphasized travel to Africa for both its leaders and members, many of whom were traveling for the first time.
"This included Height’s tour of five West African countries, along with Jeanne Noble and Dorothy Ferebee’s participation in the inaugural Conference of Women of Africa and African Descent held in Accra, Ghana, in July of 1960. Through solidarity with African women nationalists preparing for new roles in emerging societies, this research demonstrates how their on-the-ground interactions helped Council women advance their case for Black women’s inclusion in public life at home, and more broadly, for full citizenship. These experiences offer an entry point into Black women’s global struggle for self-emancipation in the age of decolonization, civil, and human rights."