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In this episode we interview Dr. Gao Yunxiang. Dr. Gao is professor of history at Toronto Metropolitan University and the author of Sporting Gender: Women Athletes and Celebrity-Making during China’s National Crisis, 1931-1945. For this conversation we are honored to have Dr. Gao join us to talk about her book Arise, Africa! Roar, China! Black and Chinese Citizens of the World in the Twentieth Century. It is a very interesting book that examines the lives and interconnectedness of three seminal figures of the Black Left in W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, and Langston Hughes as well as two very interesting Chinese internationalist cultural workers and activists Liu Liangmo and Sylvia Si-lan Chen. Of course in examining Du Bois and Robeson the work also examines the politics and lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois and Eslanda Robeson.

We initially planned to have a conversation on the whole book for this episode, but due to some time constraints we recorded this as a part 1 primarily focusing on W.E.B. Du Bois and Shirley Graham Du Bois and Yunxiang’s scholarship on them which breaks ground from archival sources that have often been ignored by western academics due to lack of access to Chinese archives or due to linguistic barriers. At a later date we plan to record an additional conversation that looks more in-depth at the other central figures in Dr. Gao’s book, namely Langston Hughes, Si-Lan Chen, Liu Liangmo and the Robesons. 

This discussion examines the conversation behind the famous photo of W.E.B. Du Bois laughing with Chairman Mao, the impact of Shirley Graham Du Bois and Eslanda Robeson on their husband’s views toward Communist China, and why Shirley Graham Du Bois is buried in China. As well as, how she navigated the Sino-Soviet split and her role within China through  the shifting landscapes of Chinese Communist policy, including the Cultural Revolution.

This is our 4th episode of the month. We’re on a current push to add 10 patrons before the end of the month. You can be one of those 10 folks to help us meet that goal for as little as $1 a month. We want to extend our gratitude to all the patrons of the show and to folks who share these episodes with friends, family and comrades. You can become a patron of the show at patreon.com/millennialsarekillingcapitalism. 

Documentary on Du Bois in China mentioned in the episode.

In this episode we interview Dr. Soyica Diggs Colbert about her recently published book, Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry. Most well known as the playwright behind A Raisin In The Sun, Hansberry was a journalist and editor for Paul Robeson’s Freedom, which covered domestic and international politics and social movements from a Black Radical perspective in the 1950’s. In the 50’s Hansberry was firmly embedded in a radical milieu that included Robeson, Du Bois, William Patterson, Claudia Jones, and Alice Childress among others in the Popular Front left of the era. 

An anti-imperialist activist and supporter of anti-colonial movements, Hansberry’s radical past was obscured or unknown in the press reports following the success of her play A Raisin In The Sun. Colbert’s work discusses the breadth of the radical journalism, organizing and thought that exists within Hansberry’s archive and how it weaves into her more well known published work. We talk to Colbert about Hansberry’s internationalism, her comrades, her friends, and her theoretical contributions as a Black Queer Radical, in a 1950’s and early 60’s era when anti-black racism, McCarthyism, patriarchy and homophobia meant that Hansberry’s most radical contributions were delivered under multiple forms of duress and at times anonymity. Nevertheless, her contributions to Black Internationalism, the Civil Rights Movement, and the politics of gender and sexuality were all substantial and prototypical of the elaborations of Black Left Feminism that would evolve after her untimely death at just 34 years of age.

We will include in the show notes, links to the archives of the publication Freedom and links to some of Lorraine Hansberry’s speeches and recorded interviews.

Lastly August is upon us, and we’re getting ready to make some announcements and have some more big episodes in the coming weeks. We are about 150 patrons short of hitting 1,000 patrons, which is our new goal. So if you have not become a patron of the show, please do, you can join for as little as $1 a month.

Onverwoestbaar. En enig in zijn soort: de Negende symfonie, 'Uit de nieuwe wereld' van Dvořák. Gijs Groenteman praat ruim een uur met dirigent Sander Teepen over deze misschien wel meest gespeelde en meest geliefde symfonie uit het repertoire. Een gesprek over treinspotten, Amerikaanse traditionals, Paul Robeson, de kunst van het dirigeren en dat éne bekkenslagje. En waarom weet je nooit dat je een goed concert gegeven hebt?

Sander Teepen dirigeert de Negende van Dvořák op zondagochtend 17 oktober in Het Concertgebouw.

Deze podcast wordt mogelijk gemaakt door Van Lanschot Kempen, hoofdsponsor van Het Concertgebouw. Wilt u reageren? Dat kan via podcast@concertgebouw.nl

We celebrate Black History Month by honoring the many prominent Black Americans and Africans who were/are nonreligious. After parsing Trump's religious remarks in his State of the Union speech, we hear Paul Robeson sing "The Bill of Rights." Filmmaker Jeremiah Camara tells us about his newest movie, Holy Hierarchy: The Religious Roots of Racism in America. Then we hear atheist rapper Greydon Square tell us why he does not believe in God.

Listen to Ciaran O'Connor and John Wood, Jr. break down the political and racial divides alongside special guest, Chloe Valdary. Chloe Valdary is a writer and the founder of the Theory of Enchantment, a curriculum which confronts polarization through the use of pop-culture. Chloe's written work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Quillette.

Learn more about Chole:

https://theoryofenchantment.com/

Twitter: @cvaldary

Professor Annette Joseph-Gabriel talks about Eslanda Robeson who, in addition to being a political activist with her husband Paul Robeson, was a chemist, anthropologist, and epic traveler.

Annette Joseph-Gabriel talks about Eslanda Robeson who, in addition to being a political activist with her husband Paul Robeson, was also a chemist, anthropologist, and epic traveler.

Texas Governor Abbot censors FFRF’s “Bill of Rights Nativity” from the state capitol; Wisconsin lawmaker Scott Allen uses government resources to convert non-Christians. Idaho post office removes Christmas greeting from window. After hearing Paul Robeson sing “The Bill of Rights,” we talk with Thomas Sheedy who won the Richard and Beverly Hermsen Student Activist award for successfully fighting to establish a secular student club at his high school.

Peter Blackman, born in Barbados in 1909, emigrated to the UK as a young man with a scholarship to Durham University.  Working as a missionary in Gambia, he became aware of the economic apartheid between black and white priests.  After the war, he worked as a mechanic on the British railway and became an active union representative, also publishing political poetry in small and obscure journals.  In this podcast, Chris Searle discusses Peter Blackman's life and reads extracts of his as yet little known poetry, which is soon to be published as a new collection.

Peter Blackman, born in Barbados in 1909, emigrated to the UK as a young man with a scholarship to Durham University.  Working as a missionary in Gambia, he became aware of the economic apartheid between black and white priests.  After the war, he worked as a mechanic on the British railway and became an active union representative, also publishing political poetry in small and obscure journals.  In this podcast, Chris Searle discusses Peter Blackman's life and reads extracts of his as yet little known poetry, which is soon to be published as a new collection.