These Ph.D. students are among the first cohort of Northwestern University’s doctoral program in black studies.
Zinga A. Fraser, 35
Dissertation title: “Catalysts for Change: A Comparative Study of Shirley Chisholm and Barbara Jordan”
Ms. Fraser was born into activism. Her grandfather was a Garveyite. Her father, who was active in the Black Power movement in New York during the late 60s and early 70s, was the godfather of Marcus Garvey’s children. And her mother, who grew up in North Carolina during segregation, was part of the sit-in movements. “My connection to issues of race comes out of that black intellectual radical tradition,” says Ms. Fraser, who worked on a voter-registration drive for Jesse Jackson, served as a Congressional aide focused on policing issues and increasing money for schools, and was the U.S. policy coordinator for the Women’s Environment & Development Organization in New York, where she focused on issues affecting women during national disasters.
Ms. Fraser’s dissertation compares the political lives of the civil-rights leader Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress and the first black presidential candidate, who confronted racism and sexism in their communities and in the chambers of power. “We need to look at the issues impacting black women: the aggressive politics of poverty and reproductive health and how the demonization of black women still operates today,” she says. “Jordan and Chisholm tried to address those issues through legislation and by providing models of leadership.” (Photograph by Mark Abramson for The Chronicle)
Ruth R. Hayes, 27
Dissertation title: “‘So I Could Be Easeful': Black Women’s Authoritative Knowledge on Childbirth”
The summer before Ms. Hayes started graduate school she found herself waiting for a friend at a bookstore where she randomly picked up a copy of Jennifer Block’s Pushed, a scathing exposé of the American maternity system. It was her first introduction to critiques of obstetrics and birth activism. “I kept reading all summer and got really politicized about birth politics,” she says. “I also noticed that nonwhite women’s experiences were largely absent from natural-birth literature, which led me to look into historical black midwifery.”
By the time she started her first semester, Ms. Hayes was ready to make black women’s approaches to pregnancy and childbirth her main focus. She is primarily interested in what happens after women decide to carry a pregnancy to term: how they choose health-care providers, prepare themselves mentally and physically to give birth, and how their social location affects those choices. Black women, she says, are more likely than other racial and ethnic groups to be dissatisfied with the care they receive while birthing, and thus experience increased negative birth outcomes. “Hopefully, my research will suggest more effective ways to intervene socially or medically,” she says, “to improve health outcomes for black mothers and infants. This research can provide some insights into how black women’s collective history continues to impact how we give birth.” (Esther Williams-Hayes)
La TaSha B. Levy, 33
Dissertation title: “Strange Bedfellows: The Rise of the New (Black) Right in Post Civil Rights America”
During the early 2000s, Ms. Levy was working at the University of Virginia as the director of its black cultural center. When she saw students reading books by Star Parker, Shelby Steele, and John McWhorter she grew concerned that they were latching on to arguments that black culture was the only thing that held the race back, and against affirmative action. Ms. Levy is interested in examining the long tradition of black Republicanism, especially the rightward ideological shift it took in the 1980s after the election of Ronald Reagan. Ms. Levy’s dissertation argues that conservatives like Thomas Sowell, Clarence Thomas, John McWhorter, and others have “played one of the most-significant roles in the assault on the civil-rights legacy that benefited them.” Ms. Levy says that with patronage from what she calls white conservative think tanks like the Manhattan Institute and the Heritage Foundation, black conservatives are now being “used to legitimize a larger discourse around racial progress that delegitimizes civil-rights policies.” (Photograph by Simone Bonde for The Chronicle)
Dwayne Nash, 35
Dissertation title: “Stop and Frisk Police Policy on Trial: Testimonies of Racial Profiling in New York City’s Local Courts”
After seven years as a New York City assistant district attorney, prosecuting people of color took a toll on Mr. Nash. He knew that race plays a significant role in criminal law but felt he couldn’t change the system from within. Mr. Nash applied to graduate school so he could more fully understand the dynamics of racial profiling. His dissertation looks at the history of how New York City’s police officers and courts have used stop-and-frisk laws as a form of legalized racial profiling.
“Stop and frisk comes from a history that has very little to do with stopping crime and has a lot to do with how blackness is perceived,” he says. “I am hopeful that my project can be used by defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, and any lay person on the street who might have to navigate through one of these encounters.” (Photograph by Mark Abramson for The Chronicle)
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, 39
Dissertation title: “Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s”
Before entering graduate school, Ms. Taylor worked as an advocate for a tenant’s rights association in Chicago where she fought foreclosures, blocked evictions, and helped the homeless find housing. Her interest in learning more about the history of race and housing in Chicago stemmed from her close contact with low-income black people who endured material inequalities that were due to racism.
Her dissertation looks at the federal government’s role in promoting single-family homeownership in low-income black communities after the unrest of the 1960s, and how the government collaborated with real-estate agencies to craft those programs. “The subprime lending crisis, if it did nothing else, highlighted the profitability of racism in the housing market,” she says, “and so, for me, it is important to understand the political economy of residential segregation.” (Photograph by Simone Bonde for The Chronicle)
