America, Goddam is a powerful account of violence against Black women and girls in the United States and their fight for liberation. Combining history, theory, and memoir, Treva Lindsey renders visible the gender dynamics of anti-Black violence. Black women and girls occupy a unique status of vulnerability to harm and death, while the circumstances and traumas of this violence go underreported and understudied. Lindsey also shows that the sanctity of life and liberty for Black men has been a galvanizing rallying cry within Black freedom movements. But Black women—who have been both victims of anti-Black violence as well as frontline participants in it, and quite often architects of these freedom movements—are rarely the focus. Black women have led movements demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland, Toyin Salau, Riah Milton, Aiyana Stanley-Jones, and countless other Black women and girls whose lives have been curtailed by numerous forms of violence. Across generations and centuries, their refusal to remain silent about violence against them led many to envisioning and building toward Black liberation through organizing and radical politics. Echoing the energy of Nina Simone’s searing protest song that inspired the title, America, Goddam is a call to action in our collective journey toward just futures.
Treva B. Lindsey is a Black feminist historian and is currently a professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at The Ohio State University. She is the author of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2017 Colored No More: Reinventing Black Womanhood in Washington D.C. Lindsey is the recipient of several awards and fellowships including the inaugural University of Missouri Faculty Achievement in Diversity Award and the inaugural Equity for Women and Girls of Color Fellowship at Harvard University. She has written for outlets such as The Washington Post, Time, NBC News, Bustle, BET, Complex, Vox, The Root, Huffington Post, PopSugar, Teen Vogue, The Grio, and Cosmopolitan, and has been a featured expert on MSNBC, Al Jazeera, BET, Black News Channel, PBS, NPR, and CNN.
Monday, April 4, 7pm ET
The Strand, New York
with Britney Cooper
Tuesday, April 5, 6:30pm ET
Café Con Libros, Brooklyn
with Uché Blackstock
Wednesday, April 6, 8pm ET
Loyalty Books, Virtual
with Derecka Purnell
Thursday, April 7, 6:30pm ET
Columbus Museum of Art, Virtual & In-person
with Hanif Abdurraqib
Friday, April 8, 1pm ET
Hutchins Center at Harvard, Virtual
with Bettina L. Love
Saturday, April 10, 4pm ET
Uncle Bobbie’s, Virtual
with Marc Lamont Hill
Saturday, April 10, 6:30pm ET
Charis Books, Virtual
with Kiese Laymon
Wednesday, April 13, 3pm PT
Commonwealth Club, Virtual
with Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman
Saturday, April 16, 7pm CT
Women and Children First, Chicago
with Barbara Ransby
Friday, April 22, 6:30pm
Rofhiwa Bookstore, Durham
with Melissa Harris-Perry
Wednesday, April 26, 7pm
Sidwell Friends, Virtual
with Bryan Garman
Tuesday, May 3,
Red Emma’s, Baltimore
with Martha Jones
