Keisha N. Blain, "Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights" (W.W. Norton, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Keisha N. Blain, "Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights" (W.W. Norton, 2025)
Host: Sullivan Sommer
Guest: Keisha N. Blaine, historian, author, social justice advocate
Date: September 14, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode centers around historian Keisha N. Blaine's new book, Without Fear: Black Women and the Making of Human Rights. In conversation with Sullivan Sommer, Blaine discusses the intellectual and activist legacy of Black women in human rights struggles, the significance of telling lesser-known women's stories, methodological approaches, and the urgency of these histories in today’s climate. The episode delves into themes of Black women’s leadership, their intellectual contributions, archival challenges, and the personal process of writing and titling such a book.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis and Timeliness of the Book

• Origins of the Project

  • Blaine started forming ideas for the book around 2019 while working on other projects, especially a book on Fannie Lou Hamer.

    “When questions come up as I'm writing one book, there are times I realize that I can't simply answer some of the questions in that particular project.” —Keisha N. Blaine [03:36]

  • The events of 2020—including the global response to George Floyd’s killing—gave urgency to questions about Black women’s longstanding leadership in human rights.

    “It was a very explosive year in terms of political activism … the police killing of George Floyd really lit a fire ... One of the things that emerged … was a question about the role of black women's leadership.” —Blaine [04:45]

• Visibility vs. History

  • Blaine highlights how Black women’s leadership can seem new only because much has been hidden from public view.

    “If it seems new to you, it only seems so because a lot of what Black women have done … is often hidden from the public view.” —Blaine [05:46]

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2. Activists, Intellectuals, and the Power of Ideas

• Expanding Definitions

  • A central thread of the book (and Blaine’s scholarship) is treating Black women not just as activists but as theorists and intellectuals who deeply shape movements and strategies.

    “When we move to this conversation about black women as intellectuals, it helps us really think through what it means … to think about a black woman as a theorist...” —Blaine [09:11]

• Evolution of Ideas

  • Blaine emphasizes the importance of “what happens between the moments”—the evolution and shifting of ideas, not only the visible acts.

    “The evolution of ideas … coincides powerfully with the larger social history about the work they're doing in the community.” —Blaine [11:04]

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3. Unheralded Figures: Pearl Sharad & Margaret Cartwright

• Pearl Sharad

  • Working-class woman in 1930s Detroit, focused on Afro-Asian solidarity, used the Black press to advocate for broad human rights.

    “Pearl Sherman really fits that mold (of activist and intellectual). Her story is, I think, so meaningful because she's someone who … doesn't have the typical kind of profile as we would expect when we talk about black women intellectuals.” —Blaine [13:09]

  • Example of expanding the definition of intellectual to include working-class women whose influence was substantial though underrecognized.

• Margaret Cartwright

  • Professor and journalist who reported on international events for major Black newspapers and attended the Bandung and All-African People’s Conferences—one of the few Black American women doing so.

    “She was able to use her writing as a powerful tool to advocate for human rights and also to keep African Americans abreast of global developments.” —Blaine [16:00]

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4. Audience & Approach

• Writing for Multiple Audiences
  • Blaine intentionally wrote the book for both academic and non-academic readers, aiming for accessibility while contributing to scholarship.

    “I wanted two groups of people to read this book. I certainly wanted academics to read the book. But I wanted to publish with a trade press because I was thinking a lot about … the ordinary reader.” —Blaine [21:19]

  • Inclusion of context, explanation, and footnotes designed for varying levels of familiarity with the field.

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5. Methodology and Sources

• Archival Work and the Black Press
  • Heavy reliance on historical newspapers, census records, and archives. The black press was pivotal as both a historical source and subject of the book.
  • Shift in this volume to more oral histories, especially in the later chapters—most notably with Kadi Diallo (Amadou Diallo’s mother).

    “I knew very early that it was impossible to tell her story without actually talking to her … And even that process was a fascinating one, because … she would share things with me that later, she hesitated if I should include it or not.” —Blaine [25:46]

  • Challenges of accessing “voice,” especially for historical figures, and the thrill of finding direct writings or speeches.

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6. The Black Press and Periodical Publishing

• Women’s Critical Role
  • Blaine names Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, Paulette Nardal, and Esther Cooper Jackson among others as crucial Black women who launched and managed influential periodicals.
• Global Black Thought Journal
  • Blaine discusses the 2025 launch of the academic journal “Global Black Thought,” expanding the intellectual infrastructure for scholarship on Black thought worldwide.

    “Global Black Thought launched officially earlier this year, and the focus is on black ideas, black theories, black thinkers, intellectuals. It's a space for anyone who's doing any kind of work around black thought on a global scale...” —Blaine [32:32]

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7. The Title: “Without Fear”

• Story Behind the Title

  • Originally intended to title the book A Global Struggle, Blaine was encouraged by her publisher to consider alternatives.

  • The eventual choice, Without Fear, was inspired by a 1944 exhortation from Mary McLeod Bethune to the National Council for Negro Women.

    “I think it ended up being what it should have been from the very beginning. … For me, it was about the message it sends in this particular moment. ... To say we are going to do the work that matters to us... without fear and hesitancy.” —Blaine [37:29]

  • The phrase’s relevance for the current political climate—anti-DEI, book banning—became a powerful rallying cry.

    “You can't move forward with fear leading the way. … Reflecting on that notion, ‘without fear’ is such a powerful mantra.” —Blaine [39:21]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Black Women’s Hidden Legacy

  “Black women were absolutely serving as leaders in various capacities, but they were not always visible.” —Keisha N. Blaine [05:54]

• On Intellectual History

  “It's not just that they're doing things … but that they are thinking carefully, critically about what they are doing—and they are strategizing. And there's something to be said about calling Black women intellectuals or calling them theorists.” —Blaine [09:29]

• On the Search for Voice

  “Being able to find the letter that [Aretha McKinley] wrote in the 1940s advocating for equal housing opportunities ... that was amazing … being able to quote her at length … now it was not just me ... telling you about these women, ... but you getting a chance ... to hear their voice.” —Blaine [28:33]

• On the Title’s Personal Journey

  “It fit … so perfectly for a number of reasons. But for me it was about the message it sends in this particular moment … we are going to do the work that matters to us. We're going to advocate strongly for human rights ... without fear and hesitancy.” —Blaine [37:29]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Genesis of the Book: [02:57]–[07:28]
• Activists vs. Intellectuals: [08:03]–[12:19]
• Profiles of Lesser-Known Women: [12:42]–[19:01]
• Audience and Accessibility: [20:49]–[24:09]
• Methodology and Sources: [24:31]–[29:25]
• Black Press & Global Black Thought: [29:25]–[35:27]
• Selection of the Title, “Without Fear”: [35:27]–[40:16]

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Summary

This engaging conversation between Keisha N. Blaine and Sullivan Sommer highlights the urgent necessity and richness of Black women’s intellectual and activist histories, unearths lesser-known contributors, and reflects on the challenges and triumphs of scholarly work with a public impact. Blaine’s Without Fear is both a work of historical recovery and a guide for present and future action—aptly encapsulated in its title and in Blaine’s own concluding words:

“You can't move forward with fear leading the way.” [39:21]

Transcript

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[Keisha N. Blaine]

There.

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[Sullivan Sommer]

As the most subordinate group within racial and gender hierarchies, Black women in the United States have understood what it means to live without full citizenship and human rights. Their political advocacy throughout American history was therefore manifold. They articulated a vision of freedom and dignity not just for themselves, but for other oppressed people as well as at the core of these women's political consciousness was the realization that the systems of oppression that imperiled the lives of black people were fundamentally in opposition to the rights of humanity. The effort to uphold and protect these rights, including the inalienable rights to life, liberty and security, became the driving force for many Black women in the United States. Those Black women are the subject of the book Without Fear Black Women and the Making of Human Rights by best selling author, speaker, social justice advocate and professor of history and Africana studies, Keisha N. Blaine. Professor Blaine, welcome to the New Books Network.

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Thank you for having me.

[Sullivan Sommer]

So, Professor Blaine, you've authored and edited several books at this point, and I can imagine maybe the seeds of Without Fear having been planted through other books and other research. Talk about why this book now.

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Yes, you're absolutely right. I started thinking about this book several years ago I would say sometime around 2019, I started dabbling with the idea of writing a book on human rights. But at the time, I had other projects I needed to finish. And in fact, at the time, I was writing a book on Fannie Lou Hamer. And so I started drafting some initial ideas. And to be clear, as a practice, I tend to write multiple projects simultaneously. It's just the way that my mind works. And when questions come up as I'm writing one book, there are times I realize that I can't simply answer some of the questions in that particular project. And so I'm able to open up a new file and start moving in different directions all at once. And so that's essentially what happened. As I was writing the book on Fannie Lou Hamer, I thought, oh, I really need to write a book on black women and human rights. A history that would certainly help contextualize someone like Hamer, but many other figures who came before her and then who would follow Hamer. And I did not, in earnest sit down to begin actually writing the book until 2020. In so many ways, I think it's the developments that were taking place in 2020 that set me on the path to actually sit down to write this book on black women and human rights. Because that was a very explosive year in terms of political activism. It was a very significant year on a national level, but also on a global scale. I think for so many people, the police killing of George Floyd really lit a fire, and it sparked so much of, I think, a powerful response, because so many people were, quite frankly, sick and tired of seeing this happen over and over again. One of the things that emerged in this process, I think, in this particular moment, was a question about the role of black women's leadership. It was a question that came to me over and over again. In fact, as I was even writing the book and finishing the book over the last couple of months or so, I went back to take a look at some of the interviews that I had conducted or people had reached out to me. Different journalists had reached out to me to ask me these questions. They wanted me to contextualize black women's leadership, Black women's leadership in social and political movements. Why? Because they were noticing the prominence of black women in these efforts to bring attention to the devaluation of black lives on a national and global scale. And, of course, what I was saying over and over again to journalists was, well, this is new. And in fact, if it seems new to you, it only seems so because a lot of what Black women have done, in historical sense, are often hidden from the public view. Right. Which is to say that black women were absolutely serving as leaders in various capacities, but they were not always visible. And so a lot has changed since the 1950s, for example, when compared to 2020. So as people started asking me questions about this and wanting me to contextualize it, I found myself moving closer and close to a draft of a proposal for this book. And I sat down one day and fleshed it all out. And as it turns out, I was in the right place at the right time. Because when I started drafting the book, I was a fellow at Harvard. I was at the KARR center for Human Rights Policy. So I was talking to people who are interested in human rights. I was deeply immersed in conversations about human rights. And I realized that I had something new and to say that I had something important to add to the story. So I think the moment is significant. Of course, a lot has happened since 2020, and now the book comes out in a very tumultuous time in US and global history. I could not have anticipated many of the developments that have taken place since I started writing that book, But I do still think that it's urgent. I think it's an important book. I think it's a book that perhaps helps us navigate this particular moment.

[Sullivan Sommer]

There are places in the book I want to get to talking about some of the women you profile in the book. But before we go there, I'm thinking about what you just said around where we are in this moment today, as we're recording this in 2025 versus when you were beginning the books in 2020. There are places in the book where you talk about women collectively and you talk about intellectuals and activists. Can you talk about the role of intellectuals, the role of activists as you see it?

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Yes. This is something I've been thinking about for quite some time. I think anyone who's familiar with my work know that I've been thinking deeply about black women's intellectual history in particular. And some of these questions, I think, came up in my very first book, which I published in 2018. One of the things that I noticed in the process of doing research over the past 10 years or even longer is that so much of the emphasis on the scholarship is very much around activism, around black women as activists. And so, as one example, a lot of emphasis has been placed on looking at women in the civil rights movement. All of that is very important. But what tends to happen, I have found, is that the focus will be on what These women did the actions that they took. So we, for example, we'll talk about the Montgomery bus boycott. We'll talk about Joanne Robinson, the Women's Political Council. We'll talk about Rosa Parks. We'll talk about these very important figures who were taking a stand in a particular moment. Which, of course, had broad implications for US History and to a large extent, for global history, too. All of that is important, but part of what I wanted to do in my work is go beyond just looking at the actions, but really sitting with the ideas. And so hence the emphasis on the intellectual. When we move to this conversation about black women as intellectuals, it helps us really think through what it means, for example, to think about a black woman as a theorist, someone who's crafting particular ideas in responses to a number of developments on a national and global scale. It's a question about how they view the world in which they live, the type of vision that they have, perhaps a political vision in a particular moment. What kinds of strategies are they devising to respond to the challenges that they are facing. All that is to say that it's not just that they're doing things and certainly what they do matter, but is that they are thinking carefully, critically about what they are doing and they are strategizing. And there's something to be said about calling black women intellectuals or calling them theorists. There's a power behind it. And so I intentionally do so in this book, as I intentionally do so in other books I have written. Because I'm trying to get that message across. And it's not solely my desire, but it's also backed up by the evidence. I think that's clear when we take a look at how these women moved in the world. And you see that even in the case of Fannie Lou Hamer, who I've written about previously, she wasn't just someone who participated in the Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee. All of that is important. But she's someone who really thought about leadership, who thought about the kinds of leadership in her community on a national scale. She lingered with the question of the role that black women would play, for example. So just thinking deeply and then at times, shifting one's position. So that's the other beauty, I think, of studying intellectual history. When we focus on what people do, it is important. But we tend to then, I think, move in the direction of the big moment. So the march or the speech, I love focusing on those big moments. At the same time, I love focusing on what happens between the moments. So how Hamer or how any other black woman might have had a particular opinion. And then with time, start shifting their ideas as they are engaging other activists and thinkers as they are learning more about the world in which they live. To me, that's a beautiful story. The evolution of ideas. And all of that, I think, coincides powerfully with the larger social history about the work they're doing in the community. So I intentionally call these women intellectuals and activists in order to address both goals at the same time.

[Sullivan Sommer]

So you mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer a couple of times, and of course, you've written a biography of Fannie Lou Hamer. And. And there are so many women in this book. Can you talk about one or two that maybe aren't. That aren't household names or aren't, you know, people that. That some of us might be familiar with?

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Absolutely. One of the things that I wanted to do in this book was really shed light on women who are lesser known, quite frankly, women who I didn't even know about when I started writing the book initially. And so it was great for me to learn about them and then be able to introduce them to readers. One of the women who I talk about in the book is a woman by the name of Pearl Sharad. And anyone who has been following my work may be familiar with her because I've written a shorter article about her several years ago, wrote an article and Souls about Pearl Serat. And so I've been intrigued with her as a figure and partly because to the point that I made earlier about thinking about black women as activists and also as intellectuals. Pearl Sherrod really fits that mold. And her story is, I think, so meaningful because she's someone who, as I talk about in the book, doesn't have the typical kind of. Of a profile as we would expect when we talk about black women intellectuals. And what do I mean? So this is a black woman with limited formal education. She's a working class, or we might use the term working poor black woman living in Detroit. And she's moving in very interesting spaces. She's collaborating with activists from all across the globe, but her primary interest is Afro Asian solidarity. And so you have this working class Black woman in the 1930s living in Detroit, reaching out to Japanese activists. Just very fascinating individual. And so I started writing about her earlier in my career just because I wanted to understand more about black women and gender within Afro Asian political and social movements, primarily of the 20th century. I didn't find a whole lot, but I found enough to write an article at the time. And I decided that I would return to pro charade and be able to dig deeper. And I'm glad I did, because I dug deeper in terms of doing the research on her and learned a lot more about her than I knew just 10 years ago. So that was absolutely wonderful to be able to tell her story. And I emphasize her story because I'm trying to send the message that it's not always about the middle class or elite individual. Not suggesting that they don't matter, but to say that, though the story is more complex, that when we think about intellectuals, we have to think about intellectuals in a more diverse and expansive way. And Pearl Sharad helps us do that. And one of the things that she does is she uses the black press, which, of course, is an important theme in my book. She uses the black press in the 1930s and into the 1940s to write about human rights in a broad sense, to advocate for political solidarity among various racial and ethnic groups, certainly, but also to call out the US Government for the ways that they are exploiting not just African Americans, but other marginalized groups. It really is a story about a woman who sees what's happening in the world around her and she wants to do something about it, and she's thinking deeply about women. What are the strategies to employ to bring about equality, to bring about human rights in the broadest sense. And so I tell her story. I follow her life. I use census records to piece together her story, and I place her in conversation with other women of the period, some more well known than others, in order to show how she, too, is part of this human rights history that we need to emphasize. It's about thinking about the ordinary individual, perhaps we can phrase it that way, the ordinary individual doing what they can in their community with the limited resources they have, attempting to make the world a better place. I find that such an inspiring story. And I really wanted to emphasize Pearl Sherrod's story to make that point. So she's one of the individuals. Another that I'll quickly highlight is Margaret Cartwright. This is someone who I learned about several years ago when I was writing Set the World. Actually, I had just finished writing Set the World on Fire, and I was in the process of doing research on some other projects, and someone reached out to me from the Amistad Research center, which is at Tulane in New Orleans, and shared with me that there's this new collection that they were preparing or working on, on Margaret Cartwright, and reached out to ask if I would assist as they were trying to raise funds to process the collection. And I rem thinking, well, who's this person? Never heard of her. But I was intrigued by her and I decided that I would at some point return to her and take a look at her collection. And I did. And I was able to emphasize her story in this book. She was a professor. She was a columnist as well, wrote for two major newspapers, the Pittsburgh Courier and the New York Amsterdam News. And one of the things that I show in the book is that she was able to use her her writing as a powerful tool to advocate for human rights and also to keep African Americans abreast of global development. So she would travel all over the world. She, for example, went to the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia, and then she would write about what she saw, what she heard. She attended the 1958 All African People's Conference in Ghana with President Kwame Nkrumah, and she wrote about that experience. And it's significant that she did so because she was one of the few black women even present from the United States. So some of these women are just extraordinary, but simply not as well known as others. But I think it's important to know their stories.

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[Keisha N. Blaine]

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[Keisha N. Blaine]

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[Sullivan Sommer]

See mintmobile.com There's a theme throughout the book about audience. You just talked about appearing at different conferences. I'm going to circle back to the media and the periodicals in a minute. But this idea about intellectuals and activists appealing to a people or a body. When you were writing this book, you know, do you think about its audience when you're writing? Or I guess another similar question is, at what point do you think about who this book is in appeal to?

[Keisha N. Blaine]

I think about this at the very beginning. In fact, it's something that I think about as I'm writing the proposal. I think with every book that I have published, I always try to figure out who I'm trying to reach first, especially because it helps direct, I think, the decision around the publisher. And there are so many challenges when it comes to publishing. And so there are moments when you simply have to move as the doors open. You just. You walk through them. But if you're fortunate to have options, then it's good to be thinking carefully. Do I want to publish this book with a trade press? Do I want to go with an academic press? Do I want to go with a press that might be able to speak to both audiences at the same time? Do I want to do something else entirely? And who am I hoping will read this book? And so when I started writing this book, I certainly thought about the audience, and I decided that I wanted two groups of people to read this book. I certainly wanted academics to read the book. But I wanted to publish with a trade press because I was thinking a lot about, quite frankly, just the ordinary reader, the person who may or may not know anything about human rights history, someone who just has some general ideas about history or they have an interest in history. They're interested in race, they're interested in politics, they're interested in gender, just these broad themes. And the idea was that this book would be a way to introduce them to the history. So you'll notice too, I think, the way that I've written the book and the way that I've tried to take time to contextualize as much as possible, I've done so because I assume that many of the people reading the book will simply not know much about the history or the individuals I talk about. And in fact, there are women who I discuss in the book who are very well known. I talk about Lena Horne, I talk about Madam C.J. walker, I talk about Ida B. Wells. But I also talk about them in different ways. I emphasize aspects of their political activism and their ideas that are not as emphasized right, that tend to be overlooked at times or marginalized in other works about them. So here's where I'm hoping Academics will certainly be engaged. And I think just a general reader who really wants to understand black women's ideas, Black Women's Lives, will pick up this book and find a lot in it. So I do think about the audience quite a bit at the very start because it does dictate the publisher for me, and it also dictates how I present the work, how I frame it. I spent a lot of time arguing my thoughts on the interventions in terms of the historiography. I do a lot of that in the footnotes intentionally because I'm mindful that I'm trying to reach people who may not know the historiography or care to know the historiography, but they really do want to know the history.

[Sullivan Sommer]

As we talk about annotations and earlier you mentioned some sources. I am always interested in the source material. Talk some about your sources. And also maybe were there sources that you had occasion to engage with in this project that maybe you hadn't previously?

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Well, I used so many different sources, of course, archival material, historical newspapers. I love working with newspapers, and I think that's evident. I always rely on the black press in general. I just find it such a rich source. One of the things that I did a bit differently in this book compared to others is that I utilize more oral histories. And I've been interested in utilizing oral histories in my work. But I admit that I, over the years, I've been somewhat hesitant to do so. And it has everything to do with concerns around accuracy, concerns around just the nuances of relying on people's memory, and even just dealing with, I think, interpersonal dynamics, which can go either way. As I've learned in the process of writing the Hamer book, it opened up an opportunity for me to be in dialogue with some of her relatives. That was, you know, that was both rewarding, but to an extent challenging because now I needed to think carefully about those relationships and, you know, the way that I was presenting the work. And it's hard not to worry about how people might feel when you say certain things, whether they agree or disagree. I hate having those kinds of hang ups. And so oral histories I think I tried to avoid for the large part, but this time I leaned into it a bit. And here is where I'm referring to the last chapter of my book where I decided to talk about Kadi Diallo, who's Amadou Diallo's mother, and started writing that chapter, started pulling up material on her, whatever I could find and finding her speeches, finding anything that she had written. I pulled as Much as I could to begin crafting the story. But I knew very early that it was impossible to tell her story without actually talking to her. And so I did reach out to her, and thankfully, she agreed to talk to me. She agreed to allow me to cite from the interviews and to reference certain things that she shared. And even that process was a fascinating one, because there are times, as we were speaking, she would share things with me that later, she hesitated if I should include it or not. And so I tried to be respectful, considerate about her concerns while knowing that I needed to utilize certain things to push forward the argument that I was trying to make. And that was, I think, a rewarding opportunity for me. And it was an opportunity for me to grow, I think, as a historian and feel a bit more comfortable with utilizing oral histories. And I spoke to several other people in the process of writing that chapter just to try to get a broader sense of what was happening, particularly in New York city in the 1990s, to get a better sense of the local politics, to get a better sense of what people thought about Connie Diallo. So it was a very, I think, interesting process of doing that research. And my sense is that it really enriched that final chapter. And so that chapter is just a different source space when compared to earlier chapters where, well, I couldn't interview many of these women I'm writing about. So I had to rely heavily on census records. I had to rely on historical newspapers. I had to go through the archives to put parts and pieces together. I worked very, very hard to capture these women's voices. And that's the one thing that I'm most proud of. You know, as I was writing a chapter on Aretha McKinley, for example, I had a lot about her, but not a lot of her voice. And so being able to find the letter that she wrote in the 1940s advocating for equal housing opportunities, black people like that was amazing. To be able to cite and quote her directly, be able to find a speech that she gave about her conception of human rights, that was gold. I mean, that was amazing, an amazing find. And I was able to quote her at length. And so those moments were powerful, because now it was not just me as the researcher and the writer telling you about these women and how important they are in this history, but you getting a chance as a reader and to hear their voice. So I'm really happy with the ways that I was able to pull the pieces together. Even though, as you can imagine, there will always be gaps, there will always be missing pieces of info but you do the best you can as a historian.

[Sullivan Sommer]

I certainly tried in sticking on this theme of voice. You talked before about the black press, and the black press features prominently as so many periodicals were in fact launched by women or managed. Managed by women as well in the book. Just a few that you have in the book. Josephine's St. Pierre Ruffin launched Women's Era. Paulette Nardal founded the Review of the Black World. Esther Cooper Jackson edited Freedom Ways. And this is not in the book. But earlier this year, you launched Global Black Thought to talk about Global Black thought.

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Yes. Well, this is an exciting new academic journal, and it's a collaboration with the African American Intellectual History Society, an organization that I've really helped. Well, first helped to establish with two of my colleagues, Christopher Cameron and Ashley Farmer, in 2015. And the organization has just been an important space for me. It still is an important space for me as a scholar, but even as a person, it's a space where I was able to make so many friends and grow as a writer and as a thinker. The idea for Journal is one that we certainly played around with, I think, very early in the organization's life, simply because the blog at the time was really taking off. There were so many exciting things coming out in terms of the scholarship, and I was the first senior editor of the blog. And it was amazing but at times overwhelming the volume of submissions that were coming in. But one of the things that became clear is that we needed the space. We needed the space to publish these works, largely because some of the challenges at the time, which I would say persist to this day, is that there was a lot of chatter about how the work would count. So for those who on the tenure track, how would the blog post count even if 100,000 people read it? And let's be clear, 100,000 people or more did read those pieces. And to this day, about 10,000 people come to the site on a daily basis, even when we're not publishing new pieces. It's quite extraordinary. But even if you published a piece and 100,000 people viewed it, could you do anything with it besides put it on your CV and hope that a tenure committee actually cared? Well, we realized very quickly tenure committees didn't actually care. And they say, of course they would say that they cared. And if they did care, they would care in the sense that they would say, well, this is lovely. It shows that you're public facing, et cetera. But it wouldn't count the way that the journal article would count or the way that the book chapter would count. So one of the things that became clear is that we needed a space for scholars to be able to both produce on the blog and then be able to develop longer pieces that would come out in a formal academic journal. It's something that I had to deal with even as a writer. I joke about the fact that when I was writing my first article on black women's intellectual history, I was struggling to find a good space for it, and eventually did find a good space for it, and I published it in one of my earliest pieces, came out in the Journal of Social History. So we just thought it would be important to create our own space. Simply, it was too hard to do so at the time, especially because we were all junior scholars and still trying to work towards securing tenure. And so fast forward to just the last couple of years, it became a lot easier to pursue it. Not suggesting it was easy, but a lot easier one. Because by the time I started having a conversation with the current board about launching a journal, they were interested in doing that. At the time we were talking about it, I had already advanced to a full professorship. And that was important in terms of thinking about my career goals, what I could manage with my time commitments, et cetera. And then on top of that, knowing that we would have resources. It's one of the things that mattered. Certainly it's expensive to launch a new journal and knowing that I would have support from my institution also, certainly from the organization. We knew that this was a good time to start moving forward with that. So Global Black Thought launched officially earlier this year, and the focus is on black ideas, black theories, black thinkers, intellectuals. It's a space for anyone who. Who's doing any kind of work around black thought on a global scale can submit and know that they will receive careful, rigorous feedback. So I'm absolutely thrilled that the first issue came out and the second comes out actually in just a few days. And so I'm thrilled to be able to participate in that effort and to collaborate with so many amazing colleagues to make that possible.

[Sullivan Sommer]

I'm a subscriber. So now I'm excited to hear that the new issue is coming out shortly.

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Yes, it's coming out shortly, and it's on Colonial Race and Identity in colonial Latin America and the Caribbean. So it's truly remarkable. It was edited by Erica Edwards. She did an amazing job and includes interviews with Ben Vinson iii, former now former president of Howard University, and also Jennifer Morgan from nyu.

[Sullivan Sommer]

Well, your book I'm gonna close out. We close out with One more question, but I wanna bring it back to your book Without Fear. The title comes from Mary MacLeod Bethune, who in 1944, called upon members of the National Council for Negro Women to seize the moment and work together without fear or hesitancy to lead the struggle for human rights. Of all the possible titles, talk about this one.

[Keisha N. Blaine]

Well, I will be honest with you. It was not my plan to call this book Without Fear. What's very interesting about, I think there's the process of publishing. At times you will get what you want, and at times you won't get what you want as an author. What's interesting is that I had already decided that I wanted to call the book A Global Struggle. And I had been using that title for the last couple of years. And I was a bit perturbed, to be honest with you, when I received a note pretty late into the process from the publicity and marketing team, saying to me, this is not working. We need something better. And I thought, better than A Global Struggle. No, this is it. And we went back and forth. I knew I needed to come up with something new. And quite frankly, I chuckle about it now because it was really the 11th hour. I had just a few more weeks before the book had to go to print. And I was reading the book. I must. I reread the book probably like a hundred times. I was circling. I was like. I was trying to figure out, okay, what would work. I made a long list, and we'd go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And eventually I saw this phrase, of course, which I talk about in the book from Mary McLeod Bethune. And I said, okay, I think this could work. I think this could work. Since they didn't like anything else that I had proposed. And so, thankfully, everyone said, yes, we like this. Yeah, can you work with this? So I, in a rush, had to edit the introduction and edit the conclusion, and did so just in time. So it's funny now because so many people have said to me, that's an amazing title. And I chuckle because it's not really what I wanted. But I actually think it ended up being what it should have been from the very beginning. So that's just the beauty, I think, of doing this kind of work. And it's a very similar story, too, now that I'm telling you to Set the world on Fire. My first book, I didn't want that title either. And now a lot of people say to me, oh, that's a great title. And I chuckled, thinking, yeah, well, okay, thank you. But it wasn't my original idea, as it turns out. It fit without fear, fit so perfectly. It fits so perfectly for a number of reasons. But for me, it was about the message it sends in this particular moment. I mentioned earlier that I simply could not have predicted that the book would come out at this particular moment, at a time where books are being banned on the subject. You know, in this anti DEI climate, so many things are happening. I just. It's remarkable that the title ends up speaking to all of these concerns in a very bold way to say we are going to do the work that matters to us. We're going to advocate strongly for human rights in the broadest sense, and we're going to do so without fear and hesitancy. And it's powerful that those words came from Mary McLeod Bethune. She understood, perhaps more than so many others, what it meant to be at the center of these conversations. I talk about her in the book and the role that she played in helping to draft the Charter of the United Nations. She understood the resistance toward just the fact that she was present. Some people did not want her in the space as a black woman. And yet there she was, advocating strongly for black people, advocating strongly for focus on bringing it into colonialism, speaking boldly even when it was, I think, uncomfortable, even if it felt uncomfortable at times, or even if it made other people uncomfortable. And so that message deeply resonates certainly with me, and I hope it does with readers who are thinking about, well, what do I do in this moment? Well, first and foremost, you can't move forward with fear leading the way. And so reflecting on that notion without fear is such a powerful mantra. And so I'm thrilled that in the end, it ends up being the title that we need at this moment.

[Sullivan Sommer]

The book is Without Fear, Black Women and the Making of Human Rights by Keisha N. Blaine. You can find Professor Blaine on LinkedIn, Instagram X and Facebook. And I am your host, Sullivan Sommer. You can find me online at SullivanSummer, on Instagram, at the SullivanSummer and on substackullivansummer. Thank you for listening to the New Books Network.

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