Omar H. Ali, Ph.D.

In the decade following the collapse of Reconstruction a new movement arose in the South comprising black farmers, sharecroppers, and agrarian workers—a Black Populist movement. Organized through the Colored Farmers Alliance, among other black-led labor groups, mutual aid associations, and black churches—and then expressed through the People’s Party, African Americans across the South created an independent political movement of their own which at times connected with an adjacent white Populist movement, and at other times diverged sharply from it. In this lecture we will explore this history.

Led by Dr. Omar Ali, author of In the Lion’s Mouth: Black Populism in the New South, 1886-1900, who serves as a dean and a professor of history and African American & African Diaspora studies (AADS) at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.