Reception 4:00 – 5:00 PM. Lecture 5:00 – 7:00PM.

Barbara Ransby, PhD, is a historian, writer, longtime political activist, and Professor of History, Gender and Women’s Studies, and African American Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago. She serves on the editorial boards of The Black Commentator (an online journal); the London-based journal, Race and Class; the Justice, Power and Politics Series at the University of North Carolina Press; and the Scholar’s Advisory Committee of Ms. Magazine. In the summer of 2012 she became the second Editor-in-Chief of SOULS, a critical journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. She is most notably known as the author of the award-winning biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (University of North Carolina, 2003). Dr. Ransby will be discussing her most recent book, Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (Yale University Press, January 2013).