Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience

MTW Chronology

 

Marion Thompson Wright Lecturers & Themes
1981-2011
1981 Sterling Stuckey, historian, Black Studies Through the Prism of Paul Robeson
1982 Max Roach, percussionist and educator, The Sacred and Secular Traditions of Black Music
1983 John Blassingame, historian, Black Historical Scholarship and the Black Historian
1984 Vincent Harding, historian, The Role of Religion in the History of Haitians, Jamaicans and Afro-Americans
1985  Esther Rolle, actress, Not Without Laughter: Humor in the Past and Thought of Afro-Americans
1986  James Farmer, civil rights activist and educator, Marching to Different Drummers: A Civil Rights Movement Retrospective
1987 Robert C. Weaver, economist, educator, and administrator, The New Black Urban Experience
1988 Basil Davidson, historian, The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade
1989 James A. Moss, Jr., clinical psychologist and educator (son of Marion Thompson Wright), Marion Thompson Wright and the Writing of New Jersey Afro-American History
1990 Gerald Davis, anthropologist and folklorist, Folkways and Black History
1991 Arnold Rampersad, literary scholar and biographer, The Use of History in Afro-American Literature
1992  John Bracey, historian, The Age of Christopher Columbus: Legacies for Africa and the Americas
1993 Nell Irvin Painter, historian, Black Women in Afro-American History
1994  Joe William Trotter, Jr., historian, Travelin’ On My Mind: The Great Migration Reconsidered
1995 Wilson Jeremiah Moses, historian, Booker T. Washington and Modern Black Leadership Reconsidered
1996  Derrick Bell, legal scholar and novelist, Separate But Equal: Plessy v. Ferguson in Historical Perspective
1997 Robin D.G. Kelley, historian, Small Footprints on the Past: America’s Black Children in Historical Perspective
1998  Sterling Stuckey, historian, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Life and Times of Paul Robeson
1999 Eric Foner, historian, On the Meaning of Freedom
2000 Ali Mazrui, historian and philosopher, Time…Africa and the Diaspora
2001 Bettye Collier Thomas, historian and archivist, Every Wise Woman Buildeth Her House: Sisterhood in the Black Church
2002 Spencer Crew, historian and museum director, Old Stories, New Venues: African American History in Public Spaces
2003 David Levering Lewis, historian, W.E.B. DuBois in Africa
2004  Roger Wilkins, historian and journalist, Brown v. Board of Education in Retrospect
2005  James Oliver Horton, historian, Lessons from the Past: The 25th Anniversary of the Marion Thompson Wright Series
2006  Cheryl Wall, literary scholar, Black Creativity and Modern American Life
2007 David Blight, historian, Time Longer Than Rope: Historical Memory and the Black Atlantic
2008 Bernice Johnson Reagon, cultural scholar, Private Grief and Public Mourning in African American Life and History
2009 Deborah Gray White, historian; Bob Herbert, columnist, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: Lincoln, the NAACP, and the World They Created.
2010 Annette Gordon-Reed, historian, Laboring in the Vineyard: Scholarship and Citizenship
2011 Deborah Willis, historian and curator, Beauty and the Black Body: History, Aesthetics and Politics.
2012 Joycelyn Elders, Former United States Surgeon General, Taking Good Care: A History of Health and Wellness in the Black Community.
2013 Thavolia Glymph, Duke University; Steven Hahn, Universty of Pennsylvana; James Oakes, The City University of New York, Emancipation and the Work of Freedom.