Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw in conversation with Dr. Kaye: BACKTALKER

Backtalker: An American Memoir (May 2026) is a personal memoir by Kimberlé Crenshaw, the pioneering scholar who coined "intersectionality" and helped develop Critical Race Theory. The book traces her life from childhood in Ohio to her role as a legal scholar, showing how lived experiences—including racism and sexism—shaped her fight for justice.

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Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (born May 5, 1959) is an American civil rights advocate and a scholar of critical race theory. She is a professor at the UCLA School of Law and Columbia Law School, where she specializes in race and gender issues.

Crenshaw is known for introducing and developing the concept of intersectionality, also known as intersectional theory, the study of how overlapping or intersecting social identities, particularly minority identities, relate to systems and structures of oppression, domination, or discrimination. Her work further expands to include intersectional feminism, which is a sub-category related to intersectional theory. Intersectional feminism examines the overlapping systems of oppression and discrimination that women face due to their ethnicity, sexuality, and economic background.

Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead is the founding executive director of The Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice and a professor of communication and African and African American Studies at Loyola University Maryland. She is the host of the award-winning radio show Today with Dr. Kaye on WEAA, 88.9 FM and the recent recipient of the Vernon Jarrett Medal for Journalistic Excellence, for her outstanding reporting on the impact racial reckoning has had in helping to close social/racial wealth gap for Black people in America. She was recently selected by The Daily Record as one of Maryland’s Top 100 Women of 2022 (an honor that she also received in 2020) and by Black Girls Vote as a 2022 honoree for its “Ladies & Politics” series. Her radio show, Today With Dr. Kaye, received both the 2022 Chesapeake Associated Press Award for Best in Show and for Best Radio Talk Show; and, the Second Place Award for Outstanding Editorial or Commentary.

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