Left of Black S2:E7
w/ Jonathan Gayles and Alondra Nelson
October 24, 2011

Jonathan Gayles, professor of African American Studies at Georgia State University and writer, director, and producer of the film White Scripts and Black Supermen: Black Masculinities in American Comic Books joins host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black. Gayles discusses reaction to his movie, which won best documentary feature at the 2010 Urban Media Makers Film Festival and remembers the impact of the late Dwayne McDuffie founder of Milestone Media. Neal and Gayles also discuss Black Entertainment Television’s ill-fated attempt to bring the animated series Black Panther to television.

Neal is also joined by Alondra Nelson, Associate Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and author of Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination Nelson reveals the historical relationship between the Black Panther Party and medicine.  Nelson reminds audiences of the real danger Civil Rights activists faced while marching and sitting-in, and how issues of healthcare were of practical concern given the threats of violence.  Nelson highlights the how the work of the Black Panther Party continues to inform community medicine movements.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for download @ iTunes U