Exploring Social Activism, Economic Empowerment, & Political Engagement With Dr. Barbara Ransby

In this week’s episode of “Someone You Need To Know”, Rashanah discusses the Black agenda for the Biden/Harris Administration, economic empowerment, political engagement, and social activism with Dr. Barbara Ransby, Historian, UIC Professor, Activist, and Author.

For years Dr. Ransby has been doing notable work not just nationally but internationally around social justice. “She was apart of the anti-Apartheid/ Free South Africa movement in the 1980s  She is a founding member of the national organization Scholars for Social Justice and works closely with The Movement for Black Lives and the multi-racial coalition, The Rising Majority.

Dr. Barbara Ransby is the John D. MacArthur Chair, and Distinguished Professor, in the Departments of African American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). She also directs the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative, a project that promotes connections between academics and community organizers doing work on social justice. She is a graduate of Columbia University and the University of Michigan, where she was a Mellon Fellow.

Dr. Ransby is author of two award-winning books: Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (2003); and Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (2013). She is also author of a third book published in August 2018 entitled: Making All Black Lives Matter: Reimagining Freedom in the 21st Century.”