University of Buffalo Africana American Studies & The Michigan Street African American Heritage Corridor Commission Spring Speaker Series

Gary Earl Ross

Moderated by Dr. James Ponzo

Retired  University  at  Buffalo  professor  Gary  Earl  Ross  is  an  award-winning  playwright,  novelist,  public  radio  commentator,  and  occasional  actor  and  director.  His  plays  include  The  Mark  of   Cain, The Guns of  Christmas, The Trial of  Trayvon Martin, The Scavenger’s Daughter, and Matter of  Intent, winner of  Mystery Writers of  America Edgar  Award.  In  addition  to  the  Gideon  Rimes  mysteries  (Nickel City Blues, Nickel City Crossfire, and the forthcoming Nickel City Storm Warning), his books include the short story collections The Wheel of  Desire, Shimmerville, and Beneath the Ice, the children’s tale Dots, and the novel Blackbird Rising. Other  honors  include  three  regional  Emanuel  Fried  Outstanding  New Play Awards, a Saltonstall Foundation Playwriting Fellowship, a LIFT Fiction Fellowship, an ASI-DEC Fiction Award, two NYS AP commentary awards, and one NYS Broadcasters Association  commentary  award.  Matter  of   Intent  and  The  Scavenger’s  Daughter,  both  African-American  mysteries,  have  been  made   into   transliterated   films   from CITOC Productions of  Mumbai, India.  

Dr. Barbara Seals Nevergold

Moderated by Dr. Fatima Morrell

Dr. Seals Nevergold is an educator, administrator, community and political  activist.  A  native  of   Louisiana,  Nevergold  moved  to  the  East side of  Buffalo, New York in 1947 with her parents. She is a graduate of  the Buffalo Public Schools and received her doctorate in Counseling Education from the University of  Buffalo. In 1999, she co-founded with Dr. Peggy Brooks-Bertram, The Uncrowned Queens  Institute,  to  promote  the  collection  and  dissemination  of   the individual and collective histories of  African American women and their organizations. Nevergold  has  authored  several  articles  and  books  including:  An Uncrowned Hero: The Untold Story of  James Benjamin Parker, 2018; The Power  of   the  Pen:  CrusadingJournalist  A.J.  Smitherman  Gave  a  Voice  to  His  People,  2013;  Nevergold,  Barbara  A.  Seals  and  Bertram,   Peggy   Brooks,   editors.   Go   Tell   Michelle:  African  American  women  write  to  the  New  First  Lady,  2009;  Nevergold  and  Brooks-Bertram, Uncrowned   Community   Builders:  Preserving  Regional  History,  One  Person  at  a  Time;  Nevergold,  Barbara  A.  Seals  and  Bertram,  Peggy  Brooks.  Uncrowned Queens: African American Community  Builders  Series,  Vols.  1-  4,  2002-2007.

The African American Studies Department, SUNYAB is pleased to announce that Literary Critic, Feminist and Social Activist Barbara Smith will deliver the 2021 Endowed African American Studies Lecture. This program also received support from the Gender Institute.Barbara Smith is an author, activist, and independent scholar who has played a groundbreaking role in opening up a national cultural and political dialogue about the intersections of race, class, sexuality, and gender. She was among the first to define an African American women’s literary tradition and to build Black women’s studies and Black feminism in the United States. She has been politically active in many movements for social justice since the 1960s.She has edited three major collections about Black women: Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue (with Lorraine Bethel, 1979); All the Women Are White, All the Blacks Are Men, But Some of Us Are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (with Gloria T. Hull and Patricia Bell Scott, 1982); and Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, 1983. She is also the co-author with Elly Bulkin and Minnie Bruce Pratt of Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism, 1984. She is the general editor of The Reader’s Companion to U. S. Women’s History with Wilma Mankiller, Gwendolyn Mink, Marysa Navarro, and Gloria Steinem, 1998. A collection of her essays, The Truth That Never Hurts: Writings on Race, Gender, and Freedom was published by Rutgers University Press in 1998. Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith, edited by Alethia Jones and Virginia Eubanks with Barbara Smith was published by SUNY Press in November, 2014.Smith was cofounder and publisher until 1995 of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, the first U. S. publisher for women of color. She resides in Albany, New York and served two terms as a member of the Albany Common Council from 2006 to 2013. From 2014 to 2017 she served as the Special Community Projects Coordinator for the City of Albany helping to implement the Equity Agenda.Smith is the recipient of numerous awards including Doctor of Humane Letters, Honorary degree from her alma mater Mount Holyoke College in 2019, the African American Policy Forum’s Harriet Tubman Lifetime Achievement Award, Lambda Literary Award for Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around and 2012; Women Who Make America” AOL/PBS and in 2005 she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Brenda Moore

Moderated by Dr. Mopelolade Oreoluwa

Dr.  Brenda  Moore  is  an  Associate  Professor  of   Sociology  at  the  University  at  Buffalo,  receiving  her  Ph.D.  in  Sociology  from  the  University  of   Chicago.  Dr.  Moore  has  numerous  publications,  including  several  journal  articles  and  a  book  entitled  To  Serve  My  Country, To Serve My Race: The Story of  the Only African American Wacs Stationed Overseas During World War II. She has completed research for a  forthcoming  book,  entitled  Serving  Our  Country:  Japanese  American  Women in the Military During World War II. Dr. Moore enjoys a wide range of  scholarly interests, and served as a contributor to the edited book, African Americans and the Rise of  the Post Industrial City, writing a chapter on the class status of  Blacks in Buffalo.Dr. Moore has presented dozens of  conference papers, served on several international, national, local community, and university committees, including the 1999 White House Initiative for One America sponsored by UB’s College of  Arts and Sciences. Serving as the organizer and host for the event, Dr. Moore brought together concerned scholars, community leaders, students, and residents of Buffalo to talk about race and ethnic issues.

Dr. Lillian S. Williams

Moderated by Dr. Mopelolade Oreoluw

Lillian S. Williams, PhD, is Associate Professor and former chair of the Department of African American Studies. Prof. Williams received the doctorate degree from the University at Buffalo. A specialist in United States social and urban history, Prof. Williams’ research is in the areas of institutions, ethnicity, biography and women’s history. Her research includes the Young Men’s and Young Women’s Christian Associations and the National Urban League; Jewish club women; and Mary Burnett Talbert, an early twentieth-century reformer.She is the author of Strangers in the Land of Paradise: The Creation of an African American Community, Buffalo, New York, 1900-1940; editor of the Records of the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs, 1895-1992 and she is writing a biography of human rights activist Mary Burnett Talbert.

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