After the Fires: Voices from Black Altadena, One Year Later
In January 2025, Altadena experienced the Eaton Fire, one of the most pressing environmental and social justice calamities of our time. Thousands lost their homes, many were displaced, and the community continues to mourn the lives lost. What can we learn from this community’s rich legacy of Black homeownership amidst current efforts to rebuild? Join us for Part II of a reflective conversation, one year after the Eaton Fire. Featuring Robin D.G. Kelley, Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History, UCLA and Shimica Gaskins, renowned poet and President & CEO, End Child Poverty, CA.
Time/Date and sponsors:
This conversation will take place as a Zoom webinar on January 28, from 4pm-5:15pm PST. Sponsored by the USC Dornsife Black Studies Center and the Equity Research Institute.
Alaina Morgan Africana Cluster Book Talk
Date/Time: Wednesday, November 12 2025 at 12:30 pm
Location: KAP 445
RSVP link: https://forms.gle/PBEuPGeYzHjiQxgK9
Date/Time: Monday, November 10 2025 at 12:00 pm
Location: Virtual
RSVP link: https://usc.zoom.us/meeting/register/JrOZnKZXQT-B1jC9Lo-PJQ#/registration
Date/Time: Monday, November 3 2025 at 5:30 pm
Location: KAP 445
RSVP link: https://forms.gle/zPtcDzHTjHaCp3Bh7
Date/Time: Monday, November 3 2025 at 4:00 pm
Location: Joyce J. Cammilleri Hall
RSVP link: bit.ly/following-harry
After the Fire: Voices from Black Altadena
Date/Time: Tuesday, October, 21st 2025 at 4pm
Location: Zoom Webinar
Confronting Economic/ Ecological Imperialism? Communal Repair and Survival in the Climate- Afflicted Caribbean
Dr. Keston Perry, Assistant Professor, African American Studies, UCLA
Wednesday, April 16, 4:00-5:30 pm at THH 309K
March 4 12-1:30 pm in KAP 445
“From the Ashes,” imagines a post-volcanic eruption Martinique to think about what it means to conduct anthropological research at the edge of knowledge. Taking a cue from Afrofuturism, a fictional short story serves as a speculative tool to explore potential futures and the imaginative possibilities that arise from historical and contemporary contexts. This text offers a critique of the anthropological reliance on pastness and the need for new ways of thinking about futurity in the Anthropocene.
A discussion of Christina Cecelia Davidson’s new book, Dominican Crossroads: H. C. C. Astwood and the Moral Politics of Race-Making in the Age of Emancipation (Duke UP, 2024). The author will be joined in conversation by Leslie Alexander (Rutgers University) and Millery Polyné (New York University), moderated by Oneka LaBennett (USC). Program partners: the Van Hunnick History Department, Department of American Studies & Ethnicity, and USC Black Studies Initiative
About the Book: H. C. C. Astwood: minister and missionary, diplomat and politician, enigma in the annals of US history. In Dominican Crossroads, Christina Cecelia Davidson explores Astwood’s extraordinary and complicated life and career. Born in 1844 in the British Caribbean, Astwood later moved to Reconstruction-era New Orleans, where he became a Republican activist and preacher in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In 1882 he became the first Black man named US consul to the Dominican Republic. Davidson tracks the challenges that Astwood faced as a Black politician in an era of rampant racism and ongoing cross-border debates over Black men’s capacity for citizenship. As a US representative and AME missionary, Astwood epitomized Black masculine respectability. But as Davidson shows, Astwood became a duplicitous, scheming figure who used deception and engaged in racist moral politics to command authority. His methods, Davidson demonstrates, show a bleaker side of Black international politics and illustrate the varied contours of transnational moral discourse as people of all colors vied for power during the ongoing debate over Black rights in Santo Domingo and beyond. MORE
AIRE Open House
BSI Spring Luncheon
