Originally broadcast at 10:30 a.m. ET Wednesday, August 25, 2021.

Keisha N. Blain is an award-winning historian of the 20th century United States with broad interests and specializations in African American History, the modern African Diaspora, and Women’s and Gender Studies. She is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh and the president of the African American Intellectual History Society. She is the editor, with Ibram X. Kendi, of the no. 1 New York Times bestseller Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019, and she joins the Chautauqua Lecture Series for a frank discussion of resistance and resilience in the face of racism.

Blain has published extensively on race, gender, and politics in both national and global perspectives. She is the author of the multi-prize-winning book Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom and co-editor of three books: To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism; New Perspectives on the Black Intellectual Tradition; and Charleston Syllabus: Readings on Race, Racism, and Racial Violence. Her forthcoming Until I Am Free: Fannie Lou Hamer’s Enduring Message to America will be published by Beacon Press in October 2021. Currently a 2020-2021 fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, Blain also serves as an editor for The Washington Post’s “Made by History” section.

Blain earned her bachelor of arts degree in history and Africana studies from Binghamton University before attending Princeton University for her master's degree and Ph.D. in history. Upon earning her Ph.D., Blain completed her postdoctoral research at Pennsylvania State University's Africana Research Center.

This program is made possible by the Barbara and Herb Keyser Fund.

About Chautauqua Institution: Chautauqua Institution is a community on the shores of Chautauqua Lake in southwestern New York state that comes alive each summer with a unique mix of fine and performing arts, lectures, interfaith worship and programs, and recreational activities. As a community, we celebrate, encourage and study the arts and treat them as integral to all of learning, and we convene the critical conversations of the day to advance understanding through civil dialogue. CHQ Assembly is the online expression of Chautauqua Institution's mission.