I've Got the Light of Freedom: In Conversation with Charles M. Payne

Celebrating the 30th anniversary of I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle is a momentous occasion that allows us to reflect on the profound impact this seminal work has had on our understanding of the Civil Rights Movement. The book offers an in-depth exploration of the grassroots activism that played a crucial role in the fight for racial equality in the United States, particularly in the Mississippi Delta. Payne's meticulous research and engaging narrative illuminate the often-overlooked contributions of local activists, community organizers, and everyday citizens who bravely challenged systemic injustice. As we commemorate three decades since its publication, the book continues to inspire new generations to appreciate the power of collective action and the enduring struggle for civil rights. Its lessons remain as relevant today as they were when it first hit the shelves, reminding us of the progress made and the work still ahead in achieving true equality and justice.
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directs the Cornwall Center and is the Henry Rutgers Distinguished Professor of Africana Studies. His interests include urban education and school reform, social inequality, social change and modern African American history. His books include So Much Reform, So Little Change, (Harvard Education Publishing Group, 2008) which examines the persistence of failure in urban schools, and a co-edited anthology, Teach Freedom: The African American Tradition of Education for Liberation (Teachers College Press, 2008), which is concerned with education as a tool for liberation from Reconstruction through Black Panther Liberation Schools. He is also the author of Getting What We Ask For: The Ambiguity of Success and Failure in Urban Education (Greenwood, 1984) and I’ve Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition in the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (University of California, 1995). The latter has won awards from the Southern Regional Council, Choice Magazine, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North America. He is co-author of Debating the Civil Rights Movement (Rowan and Littlefield, 1999) and co-editor of Time Longer Than Rope: A Century of African American Activism, 1850 -1950 (NYU, 2003). His most recent book is a co-edited anthology, Dignity-Affirming Education: Cultivating the Somebodiness of Students and Educators (Teachers College Press, 2022). He has been named to Edu-Scholars’ list of scholars “contributing most substantially to public debates about education” every year from 2015- 2020.

Payne is one of the leaders of the Freedom School Project which advocates the creation of educational spaces, which are affirmative, dignity-centered, agency-building. He was among the founders of the Education for Liberation Network. He co-directed the Carter G. Woodson Institute, which involved University of Chicago faculty in the professional development of Chicago Public School teachers.

He has won a number of teaching awards, including being named to the Bass Society of Fellows for Excellence in Teaching and Research at Duke University and holding the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern. In 2021, the University of Chicago Committee on Education established the Charles M. Payne B.A. Thesis Prize for the best undergraduate thesis submitted by students enrolled in the Education and Society program. He chaired the African American Studies departments at Northwestern and Duke. He served briefly as Chief Education Officer at Chicago Public Schools.

is a writer, historian and professor. She is the author of the groundbreaking historical study, Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race, and the American Imagination (2017). Making Gullah captured the attention of general reading audiences, students and scholars. Cooper’s book was discussed and featured in a variety of media ranging from The New Yorker, Atlanta Journal Constitution and Upscale Magazine to podcasts and radio shows. Cooper is also the author of “Selling Voodoo In Migration Metropolises” in the edited collection Race and Retail (2015), and Instructor's Resource Manual—Freedom on My Mind: A History of African Americans, with Documents (2012). Dr. Cooper has appeared in several documentaries—a list that most recently includes Henry Louis Gates’s PBS documentary The Black Church: This Our Story, This is Our Song (2021) and Great Migrations: A People on the Move (2025).
Dr. Cooper’s teaching experience spans more than two decades. She is currently Associate Professor of History at Rutgers University-Newark. Dr. Cooper won an Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation in 2019. She was also a 2021 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the recipient of the 2020-2021 Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research.

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This free event is sponsored by the Departments of Africana Studies and History, the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies, the Sheila Y. Oliver Center for Politics and Race in America, and the Black Organization of Students.

Books will be available for purchase with thanks to, a community space that centers Black art, Black literature, culture, and community.

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