New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie and political scientist Melvin Rogers, author of The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought, explore the ways key African American intellectuals and artists—from David Walker, Frederick Douglass, and W.E.B. Du Bois to Billie Holiday and James Baldwin—reimagined U.S. democracy. Thomas Donnelly, chief scholar at the National Constitution Center, moderates. This conversation was originally streamed live as part of the NCC’s America’s Town Hall program series on Nov. 14, 2023.
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This episode was produced by Tanaya Tauber, Lana Ulrich, Samson Mostashari, and Bill Pollock. It was engineered by Greg Scheckler and Bill Pollock. Research was provided by Yara Daraiseh, Cooper Smith, and Samson Mostashari.
Participants
Jamelle Bouie is an opinion columnist for the New York Times, where he covers history and politics. A former political analyst for CBS News, he previously served as chief political correspondent for Slate magazine and staff writer at The Daily Beast.
Melvin Rogers is professor of political science and associate director of the Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at Brown University. He is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy, coeditor of African American Political Thought: A Collected History, and editor of John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems. His recent book is The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought.
Thomas Donnelly is chief content officer at the National Constitution Center. Prior to joining the Center in 2016, he served as counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, as a Climenko Fellow and Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, and as a law clerk for Judge Thomas Ambro on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Additional Resources
- Melvin Rogers, The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought (2023)
- Melvin Rogers, The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy (2008)
- Kate Masur, Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction (2021)
- Jamelle Bouie, “How Black Political Thought Shapes My Work”, New York Times (Feb. 11, 2023)
- David Walker
- David Walker, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829)
- Jamelle Bouie,“Why I Keep Coming Back to Reconstruction”, New York Times (Oct. 25, 2022)
- Martin Delany
- Jamelle Bouie, “What Frederick Douglass Knew that Trump and DeSantis Don't”, New York Times (June 30, 2023)
- Jamelle Bouie, “The Deadly History of ‘They’re Raping Our Women'”, Slate (June 18, 2015)
- W.E.B. Dubois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)
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