Jenn M. Jackson, PhD author of "Black Women Taught Us" with Ericka Hart.

About the Book:

Fearless essays that reclaim the work and words of Black women activists, abolitionists, and movement makers who have long fought for liberation and justice—from a beloved Teen Vogue columnist and an essential new voice in Black feminism. 

This is my offering. My love letter to them, and to us.  A professor of political science and columnist for Teen Vogue, Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women’s freedom fighting been so overlooked throughout history, and what has our society lost because of our refusal to engage with our forestrugglers’ lessons?  A love letter to those who have been minimized and forgotten, this collection repositions Black women’s intellectual and political work at the center of today’s liberation movements.  Across eleven original essays that explore the legacy of Black women writers and leaders—from Harriet Jacobs and Ida B. Wells to the Combahee River Collective and Audre Lorde—Jackson sets the record straight about Black women’s longtime movement organizing, theorizing, and coalition building in the name of racial, gender, and sexual justice in the United States and abroad. These essays show, in both critical and deeply personal terms, how Black women have been at the center of modern liberation movements despite the erasure and misrecognition of their efforts. Jackson illustrates how Black women have frequently done the work of liberation at great risk to their lives and livelihoods.  For a new generation of movement organizers and costrugglers, Black Women Taught Us serves as a reminder that Black women were the first ones to teach us how to fight racism, how to name that fight, and how to imagine a more just world for everyone.

About the Author:

Jenn M. Jackson, PhD, is an award-winning professor of political science at Syracuse University and a columnist for Teen Vogue, where they write the popular “Speak On It” column that “explores how today’s social and political life is influenced by generations of racial and gender (dis)order.” A queer genderflux androgynous Black woman, Jackson primary research is in Black Politics with a focus on Black Feminism, racial trauma and threat, gender and sexuality, and social movements. Black Women Taught Us is their first book.

About the Conversation Partner:

Ericka Hart (pronouns: she/they) is a black queer femme activist, writer, highly acclaimed speaker and award-winning sexuality educator with a Master’s of Education in Human Sexuality from Widener University. Ericka’s work broke ground when she

went topless showing her double mastectomy scars in public in 2016. Since then, she has been in demand at colleges and universities across the country, featured in countless digital and print publications like Vogue, Washington Post, Allure, Harper’s

Bazaar, VICE, PAPER Mag, BBC News, Cosmopolitan, Vanity Fair, W Magazine, Glamour, Elle, and Essence. Ericka’s voice is rooted in leading edge thought around human sexual expression as inextricable to overall human health and its intersections with race, gender, chronic illness and disability. Both radical and relatable, she continues to push well beyond the threshold of sex positivity. Ericka Hart has taught sexuality education for elementary aged youth to adults across New York City for over 10 years, including for 4 years at Columbia University’s School of Social work and the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College. They are currently an adjunct faculty member at Widener University’s Center for Human Sexuality, a bratty switchy Sagittarius service bottom and misses Whitney more than you.