Dr. Gerald Horne is an African American historian, author, and Communist who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston. He received his PhD from Columbia University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is a frequent contributor to Political Affairs magazine.
A prolific author, Horne has published on W. E. B. Dubois and has written books on a wide range of neglected but by no means marginal or minor episodes of world history. He specialises in illuminating previously obscure or misrepresented struggles of humanity for social justice, in particular communist struggles and struggles against imperialism, colonialism, fascism and racism. Individuals whose lives his work has highlighted in their historical contexts have included the blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter John Howard Lawson, Ferdinand Smith (Jamaican-born communist, sailor, labor leader), the perplexing Lawrence Dennis,[2] an African-American fascist and racist who passed for white, and the feminist, anti-colonialist, internationalist intellectual Shirley Graham DuBois whose own career was overshadowed by that of her famous husband. While many of Horne’s books use a celebrated, intriguing or politically engaged individual as a prism to inspect the historical forces of their times, Horne has also produced broad canvas chronicles of infrequently examined periods and aspects of the history of white supremacy and imperialism such as the post-civil war involvement of the US ruling class—newly dispossessed of human chattels—with slavery in Brazil, which was not legally abolished until 1888, or the attempts by Japanese imperialists in the mid-20th century to appear as the leaders of a global war against white supremacy, thus allies and instruments of liberation for people of color oppressed by Anglo-American Empire.
Manning Marable has said: “Gerald Horne is one of the most gifted and insightful historians on racial matters of his generation.”
Event:
What: DR. GERALD HORNE BOOK SIGNING
When: February 11, 2014 / 7pm
Where: Eso Won Books, 4327 Degnan Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA, United States
Book: BLACK REVOLUTIONARY WILLIAM PATTERSON: And the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle
Book info: Through Patterson’s story, Horne examines how the Cold War affected the freedom movement, with civil rights leadership sometimes disavowing African American leftists in exchange for concessions from the U.S. government. He also probes the complex and often contradictory relationship between the Communist Party and the African American community, including the impact of the FBI’s infiltration of the Communist Party. Drawing from government and FBI documents, newspapers, periodicals, archival and manuscript collections, and personal papers, Horne documents Patterson’s effectiveness at carrying the freedom struggle into the global arena and provides a fresh perspective on twentieth-century struggles for racial justice. Come early and enjoy the discussion.
For more information on this event, please visit:
Department of History
The University of Houston
524 Agnes Arnold Hall
Houston, TX 77204-3003
(713) 743-3083
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