This week, we explore America at 250 years old, through lenses of migration, Black history, and queer liberation. Darius Bost and C. Riley Snorton discuss their book A Black Queer History of the United States. And Anna O. Law discusses her book Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants. Moderated by historian and author Valerie Gugala.

This episode is the first of many to come from the 2026 American Writers Festival. Co-hosted by the American Writers Museum and Chicago Public Library, the American Writers Festival is a free literary event featuring in-depth conversations with diverse writers from across genres and backgrounds. This conversation took place June 7, 2026 and was recorded live at the Harold Washington Library Center.

More about A Black Queer History of the United States:

A sweeping and introductory Black queer history of the United States centering queer and trans contributions to the Black freedom movement from slavery to Black Lives Matter. Through storytelling and other narratives, Snorton and Bost show how the Black queer community has always existed, regardless of the attempts to stamp it out, and how those in it continue to fight for their rightful place in the world.

More about Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship:

Presents a story of constitutional development that traces the confluence of the logics of slavery and settler colonialism in historical legal rulings and public policy about U.S. migration and citizenship. The book examines the division of labor between the national and state/local governments that endured for over a century, reasons why that arrangement changed in the late nineteenth century, and what the transformation meant for people subject to those regimes of control. Drawing into one study the migration policy histories of groups of people that are usually studied separately, and combining the methodologies of political science, history, and law, Anna O. Law reveals the unmistakable effects of slavery and Native American dispossession in modern U.S. immigration policy.

About the writers:

DARIUS BOST is Associate Professor of Black Studies and Gender & Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is the author of Evidence of Being: The Black Gay Cultural Renaissance and the Politics of Violence (University of Chicago Press).

VALERIE GUGALA is a historian and public speaker with a profound love for reading, particularly books that have faced censorship throughout history. Valerie’s keen interest in American history provides a rich backdrop for her talks, where she delves into the stories that have shaped the nation’s cultural and political landscape. With over 25 years of experience, Valerie has captivated audiences across the Chicago area and beyond. Her engaging presentations and insightful perspectives have made her a sought-after speaker for a wide range of groups and organizations.

ANNA O. LAW is the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights in the Department of Political Science at CUNY Brooklyn College. She is an interdisciplinary scholar who is mostly a legal historian now. She completed her PhD in Government at the University of Texas at Austin. Her publications appear in political science, history, and law journals and investigate the interaction between law, history, and politics. Her first book, The Immigration Battle in American Courts (2010), examined the role of the federal judiciary in U.S. immigration. She teaches and researches in U.S. constitutional law, federal courts, U.S. immigration policy history, federalism, and race/ethnicity.

C. RILEY SNORTON is Professor of English and Comparative Literature and jointly appointed with the Institute for the Study of Sexuality and Gender at Columbia University. He is the author of Nobody Is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low (University of Minnesota Press, 2014) and Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity (University of Minnesota Press, 2017), and co-editor of Saturation: Race, Art and the Circulation of Value (MIT Press/New Museum, 2020) with Hentyle Yapp and The Flesh of the Matter: A Critical Forum on Hortense Spillers (Vanderbilt University Press, 2024) with Margo Natalie Crawford. He is also the co-author of A Black Queer History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2026) with Darius Bost. Snorton is currently working on his third single-author monograph, Black Trans Matters.