Join us for a conversation with Casarae Lavada Abdul-Ghani, author of Start a Riot! Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement Drama, Fiction, and Poetry, and Judy Juanita, American Book Award winner and former editor of the Black Panther Party Newspaper. 

About the book:

Start a Riot! Civil Unrest in Black Arts Movement Drama, Fiction, and Poetry analyzes riot iconography and its usefulness as a political strategy of protestation. Through a mixed-methods approach of literary close-reading, historical, and sociological analysis, Casarae Lavada Abdul-Ghani considers how BAM artist-writers like Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Ben Caldwell, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sonia Sanchez, and Henry Dumas challenge misconceptions regarding Black protest through experimental explorations in their writings. Representations of riots became more pronounced in the 1960s as pivotal leaders shaping Black consciousness, such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., were assassinated. BAM artist-writers sought to override the public's interpretation in their literary exposés that a riot’s disjointed and disorderly methods led to more chaos than reparative justice. 

Casarae Abdul-Ghani, assistant professor of English at Temple, received her BA in English from Johnson C. Smith University and her MA and PhD also in English from Purdue University. Judy Juanita is an award-winning author, poet, public speaker and podcaster. Juanita joined the nation’s first Black Student Union at San Francisco State and subsequently the Black Panther Party (BPP).

This program is presented in partnership with the Temple University English Department and the Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and the African Diaspora at Penn State Special Collections Library. 

Our programs are geared toward a general audience and are open to all, including Temple students, faculty, staff, alumni, neighbors, and friends. Registration is encouraged.