Category / Faculty

by abritt

Suddler’s New Book, ‘Presumed Criminal,’ Featured by ‘Diverse Issues in Higher Education’

Assistant Professor of History Dr. Carl Suddler was recently interviewed by Diverse Issues in Higher Education about his new book, Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York. New York University Press published the book earlier this year. Lamont Jones wrote the piece for Diverse, entitled “Emory History Professor’s New Book Probes Black Youth, Criminal Justice.” Read an excerpt below, in which Suddler discusses the book’s cover photo, along with the full article here.

What’s the story behind that compelling cover photo?

[Suddler] “I love the cover image for several reasons. It’s a photo from 1966 Brooklyn. The patrolmen in the backdrop are amongst the 1,500 that were assigned to the neighborhood and, what I often like to point out, is the ‘diversity’ amongst the ranks. There is no information related to the ages of the boys in the image, but you can gather that they are all relatively young, especially the youngster peering out into the camera from the hole in the fence. At its core, however, I feel this image captures the crux of the book – and the heart of the problem today – and that is how normal the over-policing of Black and Brown communities has become. The boys continue to play ball; the officers continue to stand pat. Their proximity does not appear to phase the youngsters. However, we all know too well that increased interactions with the police often lead to increased arrest rates, arrest rates dictate ‘crime’ statistics, and as a country – because we have yet to figure out a better alternative – we rely on crime statistics to make sense of who is ‘presumed criminal.’ Whether or not they committed a crime becomes moot.”

by abritt

Carol Anderson on the Parallels Between Anti-Black Lynchings and Contemporary Violence

Dr. Carol Anderson, Associated Faculty in the History Department, recently contributed to a CNN.com article comparing contemporary acts of violence to anti-black lynchings in the twentieth century and before. John Blake authored the piece, “Why El Paso and other recent attacks in the US are modern-day lynchings,” which quotes Anderson extensively. The historian, who is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies and Chair of African American Studies, draws from her work on lynchings in White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide and notes that her uncle was “almost lynched in the early 20th century for standing up to a white man in an Oklahoma store.” Read an excerpt that features Anderson below along with the full article.

“But Anderson and others warn that many of the same elements that spawned the lynching era are stirring once again in America. One commentator even described the El Paso shooter as ‘a lynch mob of one.’

“The result, Anderson says, is that more Americans — Latinos, blacks, Muslims, Jews, anyone not seen as white enough — are now experiencing the same fear of being murdered at random in public that their relatives faced during the lynching era.”

by abritt

Chris Suh Speaks to NPR about Japan’s Proposal for Racial Equality in the Treaty of Versailles

Assistant Professor of History Chris Suh contributed to a recent article published as a part of NPR’s Code Switch series. Josh Axelrod wrote the piece, entitled “A Century Later: The Treaty Of Versailles And Its Rejection Of Racial Equality,” which discusses Japan’s ultimately-rejected proposal for an anti-racist clause in the 1919 accord that ended World War I. Read part of Suh’s contribution below along with the full article.

“‘At the bottom of all of this is the idea that certain people of color cannot be trusted and people of color do not deserve a place, not only on the world stage but also in our own communities,’ says professor Chris Suh who studies Asian American history.

“The rejection of the proposal would play a role in shaping the U.S.-Japan relationship, World War II and Japanese American immigration. It sheds light on the treatment of nonwhite immigrant groups by the U.S. and its legacy of white supremacy.

“‘Basically … there continues to be this sense of racial superiority among the Americans’ toward Japan, Suh argues.”

by abritt

Postdoctoral Fellow Teresa Davis on Imprisoned Historian and Colleague in ‘The Washington Post’

Dr. Teresa Davis is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Latin American History in the History Department. She completed graduate school at Princeton University, where she was a colleague of historian Xiyue Wang. Wang was imprisoned in Iran in 2016 while conducting archival research on nineteenth-century nomadic populations of contemporary Central Asia, Russia, Iran, western China and Mongolia. Davis wrote a piece in The Washington Post arguing for increased attention to his research and imprisonment. Read an excerpt below along with the full piece, “Iran has imprisoned a historian for three years. Here’s why his research matters.”

“We should all work tirelessly for Wang’s release. There is no zero-sum equation between fighting to free an innocent researcher in an Iranian prison and advocating for productive diplomatic relations with Iran. Indeed, if diplomacy and sanity are to succeed, we will need to protect the work of researchers such as Wang, who systematically challenge the idea of a foundational clash between East and West, Islam and Christianity, or “backward” and “modern” forms of political organization. To support Wang is to cast our lot in favor of historical nuance and humanity against the hard-liners — both abroad and in our midst.”

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Jeffrey Lesser Discusses Prison Conditions in Brazil in Wake of Massacre

Dr. Jeffrey Lesser contributed to a July 30 article in Al Jazeera about a prison massacre in the Brazilian state of Pará that left 57 inmates dead. Lesser is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of History and Director of the Halle Institute for Global Research. Read his quote from the article below along with the full piece: “Scores killed in Brazil prison riot; 16 decapitated.”

“The prisons themselves are the opposite of rehabilitation. They are taking young people and making them into hardened criminals and that is in part because Brazil has in some ways an extremely weak state and because the state is weak, the criminal gangs expand.” – Jeffrey Lesser

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‘SaportaReport’ Features New Works by Carl Suddler and Colson Whitehead

Presumed Criminal

SaportaReport recently featured two new books about black youth experiences in the justice system published by History Department Assistant Professor Carl Suddler and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead, respectively. Managing Editor David Pendered wrote the piece, titled “Justice for black youths, reparations in Atlanta’s conversations this summer.” Pendered discusses Suddler’s Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York, which was published by NYU press last month. Suddler offers a reading of Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, which was also published last month. Whitehead recently presented at the Atlanta History Center. Read the full piece in SaportaReport here.

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Dr. Carl Suddler Places ‘Central Park Five’ in Historical Context for the ‘AJC’

Presumed Criminal

Incoming Assistant Professor of History Carl Suddler recently contributed to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Yusef Salaam of Central Park Five: ‘Born with a target on our backs.'” Shelia Poole wrote the piece, which centers on Yusuf Salaam, one of the so-called Central Park Five. Read the excerpt that quotes Dr. Suddler below as well as the full article.

“I think when we see these cases, especially wrongful convictions, it does kind of beg the question just how many of these cases have happened over time,” said Carl Suddler, author of “Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York” and professor of history, who will join the faculty at Emory University this fall. “In the United States, we do not have a justice system, we have a legal system. We have a system that followed the letter of the law, not necessarily fairness.”

by abritt

Crespino and Lal Win Georgia Author of the Year Awards

Atticus Finch

Two History Department faculty have won 2019 Georgia Author of the Year awards. Dr. Joseph Crespino, Chair and Jimmy Carter Professor of History, won in the history category for his Atticus Finch: The Biography (Basic Books). The publisher describes Atticus Finch as charting

how Harper Lee’s father provided the central inspiration for each of her books. A lawyer and newspaperman, A. C. Lee was a principled opponent of mob rule, yet he was also a racial paternalist. Harper Lee created the Atticus of Watchman out of the ambivalence she felt toward white southerners like him. But when a militant segregationist movement arose that mocked his values, she revised the character in To Kill a Mockingbird to defend her father and to remind the South of its best traditions. A story of family and literature amid the upheavals of the twentieth century, Atticus Finch is essential to understanding Harper Lee, her novels, and her times.

Associated Faculty in History Ruby Lal, whose primary appointment is as Professor of South Asian Studies in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies, received the Author of the Year award in the biography category. Lal’s Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan chronicles the life of a seventeenth-century empress who “wielded unprecedented power, strategizing with senior counselors, minting currency, addressing the public, shooting tigers, and designing clothing and architecture.” The book was also a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

by abritt

Dr. Carl Suddler on “When They See Us” in ‘The Washington Post’

Assistant Professor Carl Suddler recently wrote a piece in The Washington Post commenting on the Netflix miniseries “When They See Us,” which chronicles the story of five teenagers — the so-called Central Park Five — forced to confess to a rape they did not commit in 1989. Suddler is the author of Presumed Criminal: Black Youth and the Justice System in Postwar New York, to be published by NYU press in July of 2019. Read the full piece, “How the Central Park Five expose the fundamental injustice in our legal system,” along with the excerpt below.

“When They See Us” sheds new light on this old tale and aims to create change. DuVernay’s miniseries joins the decades-long efforts by activists to humanize the Central Park Five beyond the numeric moniker. It also, perhaps most notably, has inspired the next generation of social justice activists committed to working to overturn wrongful convictions and to reigniting mainstream discussions about criminal injustices in America’s legal system, in the hope of achieving an overhaul of the system.

by abritt

At the Crossroads of Nursing and the Humanities: Dr. Kylie M. Smith Teaches HIST 190, “Madness in America: A History from Lunancy to Mass Incarceration”

Dr. Kylie M. Smith is Assistant Professor and the Andrew W. Mellon Faculty Fellow for Nursing and the Humanities. In the spring of 2019, Smith taught a freshman seminar in History entitled “Madness in America: A History from Lunancy to Mass Incarceration.” The Emory School of Nursing just published an insightful profile of Smith’s research and teaching: “A Different Set of Tools: Using the humanities to understand nursing’s role in social justice.” Read the full profile and see the description of the course below.

History 190: “Madness in America: A History from Lunancy to Mass Incarceration”

In this course we will explore the history of approaches to mental illness in the US, and consider the impact of this history for current issues in mental health. Topic areas include the culture of asylums, slavery and psychiatry, changing definitions and treatment practices, depictions of madness in popular culture, Civil Rights and patient rights, and trauma, war and the role of psychiatry in social control. We will visit the archives to explore journalist’s exposes and medical records as we attempt to uncover hidden histories of shame and stigma. We will seek to understand the experience and construction of “the patient” through the intersection of culture, politics and law, and ask critical questions about the nature of mental illness itself. Our goal in this course is to understand how historical attitudes shaped the development of policy and services, and how this impacts those with mental illness today. In this process we will explore the ethics of confinement of the mentally ill and analyze the troubled relationship between mental illness and criminality.