Black Women Talk Politics

Tiffany Willoughby-Herard is Professor of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Irvine, and Professor Extraordinarius in the Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair at the University of South Africa. She is the author of Waste of a White Skin: The Carnegie Corporation and the Racial Logic of White Vulnerability. Lisa Beard is Associate Professor of Political Science at Western Washington University. They are the author of If We Were Kin: Race, Identification, and Intimate Political Appeals. LaShonda R. Carter is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at Riverside City College. Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University–New Brunswick. She is the author of Re-Imagining Black Women: A Critique of Post-Feminist and Post-Racial Melodrama in Culture and Politics. Jessica Millward is Associate Professor of History and Core Faculty in African American Studies at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Finding Charity's Folk: Enslaved and Free Black Women in Maryland.

"An important and timely volume that highlights the breadth and depth of Black women's and gender expansive scholars' contributions to political science. Black Women Talk Politics opens up possibilities and pathways for meaningful scholar-activism within and beyond the discipline and shows the generative potential of intentional, caring, well-crafted scholarly Black women's gatherings." — Robin L. Turner, Butler University"Black Women Talk Politics makes a significant contribution—one that is both long overdue and remarkably forward-looking. Political science has often struggled to take seriously the lived experiences and intellectual labor of scholars from marginalized communities. Oral history, when used at all, has typically centered elite voices and reinforced disciplinary gatekeeping. Here, oral history is more than a methodological choice—it's a subversive intervention! By elevating storytelling, memory, and mentorship to the level of formal scholarship, the volume challenges dominant narratives about what counts as knowledge in the discipline. It models citation justice, archival care, and collaborative authorship as scholarly practices. It is ambitious in both content and form. It doesn't just profile individual scholars; it creates a living archive. It teaches. It remembers. It passes down knowledge across generations. And it does so while offering readers—especially students and early-career scholars—a model for how to do political science differently: with care, rigor, and a deep commitment to community." — Ray Block Jr., coauthor of Black Networks Matter: The Role of Interracial Contact and Social Media in the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests"This book is for every single Black woman and BIPOC scholar who has encountered anything less than love in higher education. More than the documentation of an event or individual careers, Black Women Talk Politics is a world-building blueprint that demonstrates the necessity and radical impact of community care, truth-telling, and feminist praxis. Methodologically sophisticated and conceptually original, it upholds a sociality that will make it possible for more Black women, femmes, and queer and non-binary folx to build power through community. I expect many will follow this movement." — Ruth Nicole Brown, author of Hear Our Truths: The Creative Potential of Black Girlhood