Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights by Keisha N. Blain

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is encouraged. This event takes place at the Auburn Avenue Research Library, 101 Auburn Ave NE, Atlanta, GA 30303. Doors open at 6pm. Event begins promptly at 6:30pm.

Charis and the Auburn Avenue Research Library welcome Keisha N. Blain in conversation with Beverly Guy-Sheftall for a celebration of , anaccount of Black Women's aspirations, strategies, and struggles to pioneer a human rights approach to combating systems of injustice.

Even before they were recognized as citizens of the United States, Black women understood that the fights for civil and human rights were inseparable. Over the course of two hundred years, they were at the forefront of national and international movements for social change, weaving connections between their own and others’ freedom struggles around the world.Without Fear tells how, during American history, Black women made humans rights theirs: from worldwide travel and public advocacy in the global Black press to their work for the United Nations, they courageously and effectively moved human rights beyond an esoteric concept to an active, organizing principle. Acclaimed historian Keisha N. Blain tells the story of these women—from the well-known, like Ida B. Wells, Madam C. J. Walker, and Lena Horne, to those who are still less known, including Pearl Sherrod, Aretha McKinley, and Marguerite Cartwright. Blain captures human rights thinking and activism from the ground up with Black women at the center, working outside the traditional halls of power.By shouldering intersecting forms of oppression—including racism, sexism, and classism—Black women have long been in a unique position to fight for freedom and dignity. Without Fear is an account of their aspirations, strategies, and struggles to pioneer a human rights approach to combating systems of injustice.

About the authorKeisha N. Blain is professor of Africana studies and history at Brown University. She is a Guggenheim, Carnegie, and New America Fellow, and author—most recently of the National Book Critics Circle Award finalist . She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

About the conversation partner

Beverly Guy-Sheftall is the founding director of the Women's Research and Resource Center (1981) and Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women's Studies at Spelman College. For many years she was a visiting professor at Emory University's Institute for Women's Studies where she taught graduate courses in Women's Studies. At the age of sixteen, she entered Spelman College where she majored in English and minored in secondary education. After graduating with honors, she attended Wellesley College for a fifth year of study in English. In 1968, she entered Atlanta University to pursue a master's degree in English; her thesis was entitled, "Faulkner's Treatment of Women in His Major Novels." A year later she began her first teaching job in the Department of English at Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1971 she returned to her alma mater Spelman College and joined the English Department. Beverly Guy-Sheftall has a Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University.

She has published a number of texts within African American and Women's Studies which have been noted as seminal works by other scholars, including the first anthology on Black women's literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature (Doubleday, 1980), which she co-edited with Roseann P. Bell and Bettye Parker Smith; her dissertation, Daughters of Sorrow: Attitudes Toward Black Women, 1880-1920 (Carlson, 1991); (New Press, 1995); an anthology she co- edited with Rudolph Byrd entitled Traps: African American Men on Gender and Sexuality (Indiana University Press, 2001); a book co-authored with Johnnetta Betsch Cole, (Random House, 2003); an anthology, , co-edited with Rudolph P. Bryd and Johnnetta B. Cole (Oxford University Press, 2009); an anthology, (Feminist Press, 2010), with Stanlie James and Frances Smith Foster. Her most recent publication (SUNY Press, 2010) is an anthology co- edited with Johnnetta B. Cole, . In 1983 she became founding co-editor of Sage: A Scholarly Journal of Black Women which was devoted exclusively to the experiences of women of African descent. She is the past president of the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2017).

About the venue:Masks are encouraged but not required.AARL has a free parking lot accessible via Courtland street. Please park and enter the library to get a guest pass for your dashboard before having a seat in the auditorium.

The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. Donate via our website: www.chariscircle.org/donate.

Please contact us at [email protected] or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event.

By attending our event, you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to Charis staff immediately or email [email protected].

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