New book traces Black women’s innovative advances across the history of human rights

‘Black women have been deeply engaged in trying to figure out how to get this country to accept, to understand, to learn about human rights.’

Stanlie James’ new work profiles 14 Black women dedicated to human rights. In Practical Audacity: Black Women and International Human Rights, James outlines how Black women’s contributions to the field have often gone underappreciated. Her book tracks the way their work critically reshaped human rights as a field of study and area of activism, their varied strategies, and their shared vision of the future.

Stanlie James is a social scientist and Professor Emerita at Arizona State University and University of Wisconsin Madison. She works in African, African American, and Women’s studies. She served for four years as the Vice Provost for Inclusion and Community Engagement at ASU.

James is joined in conversation by Loretta Ross and Barbara Phillips.

Loretta Ross is a professor at Smith College where she teaches on human rights and white supremacy. From 2005 to 2012, Ross was National Coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective.

Barbara Phillips is a former Associate Professor at the University of Mississippi School of Law. She worked at the Ford Foundation as a Program Officer and was responsible for grants related to women’s rights in the Peace and Social Justice Program.

Reagan Jackson is a writer, activist, and co-host of The Deep End Friends Podcast. Her latest book is Still Here: A South End Mixtape from an Unexpected Journalist. Jackson is also the daughter of Stanlie James and facilitates this conversation.

Seattle Public Library presented this talk on February 10, 2022.

If you have any feedback on this episode, you can email us at jobrien@kuow.org

Or you can just click the feedback button on the edge of this page. Reach out. We're listening.