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When #BlackLivesMatter emerged in 2013, it animated the most consequential, Black-led mobilization since the civil rights and Black power era. Today, the hashtag turned rallying cry is but one expression of a radical reorientation toward Black politics, protest, and political thought. To Build a Black Future examines the spirit and significance of this insurgency, offering a revelatory account of a new political culture—responsive to pain, suffused with joy, and premised on care—emergent from the centuries-long arc of Black rebellion, a tradition traced back to the Black enslaved person.

Drawing on his own experiences as an activist and organizer, Christopher Paul Harris takes readers inside the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL) to chart the propulsive trajectory of Black politics and thought from the Middle Passage to the present historical moment. Carefully attending to the social forces that produce Black struggle and the contradictions that arise within it, Harris illustrates how M4BL gives voice to an abolitionist praxis that bridges the past, present, and future, outlining a political project at once directed inward to the Black community while issuing an outward challenge to the world.

Christopher Paul Harris will be in conversation with Geo Maher.

Essential reading for the age of #BlackLivesMatter, this visionary and provocative book reveals how the radical politics of joy, pain, and care, in sharp contrast to liberal political thought, can build a Black future that transcends ideology and pushes the boundaries of our political imagination.

About the Author:

Christopher Paul Harris is assistant professor of Global and International Studies at University of California, Irvine. His work aims to understand the political lives, thought, and cultures of the Black diaspora and the underlying forces that shape them. Harris earned his Ph.D. in politics and historical studies from The New School for Social Research. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of African American Studies at Northwestern University. To Build a Black Future is his first book.

About the Guest Speaker:

Geo Maher is the coordinator of W.E.B. Du Bois School for Abolition and Reconstruction.