Episode 207: Writing the Dark Testament – Black History

This week, authors Charisse Burden-Stelly and Andrew W. Kahrl discuss their recent work and writing Black history with journalist Arionne Nettles. This conversation originally took place May 19, 2024 and was recorded live at the American Writers Festival. Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States by Charisse Burden-Stelly is a radical explication of the ways anti-Black racial oppression has infused the US government’s anti-communist repression. And in The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America, Andrew W. Kahrl reveals a history that is deep, broad, and infuriating, and casts a bold light on the racist practices long hidden in the shadows of America’s tax regimes. This episode is presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum's special exhibit Dark Testament: A Century of Black Writers on Justice, which is now traveling throughout the United States. Learn more and see where Dark Testament is now at this link here. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HOME About the writers: DR. CHARISSE BURDEN-STELLY is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and a 2023-2024 Charles Warren Center Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. A scholar of critical Black studies, political theory, political economy, and intellectual history, she is the author of Black Scare/Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States, the co-author of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History, and the co-editor of Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women’s Political Writings and of Reproducing Domination: On the Caribbean Postcolonial State. ANDREW W. KAHRL is professor of history and African American studies at the University of Virginia. He is the author of the books The Land Was Ours and Free the Beaches. ARIONNE NETTLES is a lecturer at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. As a culture reporter in print and audio, her stories often look into Chicago history, culture, gun violence, policing and race & class disparities as a contributor to the New York Times Opinion, Chicago Reader, The Trace, Medium’s ZORA and Momentum, Chicago PBS station WTTW and NPR affiliate WBEZ. She is also host of Is That True? A Kids Podcast About Facts and the author of We Are the Culture: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything.