Shannon King, Fairfield University
February 27, 2025, 5pm
Galanti Lounge, Robert Carothers Library & Livestreamed

Dr. King will discuss Black resistance to racial violence outside the South from the Great Depression to the 1990s through the lens of what he calls the “politics of safety.” Building on some of the stories in his new book, The Politics of Safety: The Black Struggle for Police Accountability in La Guardia’s New York, he suggests alternative ways to understand and teach African American history and Black social movements in the United States.

King is an Associate Professor of History at Fairfield University. His research focuses on the Black freedom struggle outside the South, particularly New York City during the first half of the twentieth century. His work has appeared in the Journal of African American History (forthcoming), Journal of Urban History, and Reviews in American History; and he has essays in Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North, and Escape from New York!