Today on the podcast I get the chance to speak to Fr. Joseph A. Brown. Fr. Brown is a Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, and is one of our plenum speakers at this year’s NPM Convention.
I’ll admit to you that I was humbled to speak to Fr. Brown. I’ve never been so nervous to speak to an interviewee in my life, because this week I learned how much I still need to learn about the racism that pulses through the veins in our country. In the past week my eyes have been opened to how my silence works against the cause of equality and social justice.
And so I prepared to sit down with Fr. Brown. I started by reading his interview from the Southern Illinoisan, a local Illinois newspaper. The article mentioned Breonna Taylor and linked back to a news article about her. I read the article related to her being shot eight times in her own home. That article cited the death of Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia several weeks prior. I sat and read every article I could, and watched a video breakdown of how Arbery’s death occurred. From there I read more and more articles linked to deaths in the black community that simply shouldn’t have happened.
And lastly, I watched the combined footage of George Floyd. I watched it, and then watched it again.
From there, my education began. My education into the privilege I inherited as a white woman, and the privilege I hope to use to voice that Black Lives Matter and to help facilitate change.
That was the context from where I spoke to Fr. Brown today.
Fr. Brown begins the conversation by reflecting on the uprising across the country- and the world- to support the black community and take action towards anti-racist policies and real social change.
SHOW NOTES
As a musical accompaniment to this episode, Fr. Brown encourages you to listen to “I’ve Been in the Storm Too Long”. It can be found on YouTube here.
Fr. Brown has several follow-up articles we encourage you to read.
Carbondale leaders reflect on George Floyd killing in Minneapolis (an interview with Fr. Brown)
Black America: I am Tired – by Joseph A. Brown (National Catholic Register)
My Arms are Empty: A Song of Lamentation – by Joseph A. Brown
We also encourage you to listen to Sister Thea Bowman’s speech to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in 1989.
The transcript can be found here.
Fr. Joseph A. Brown- Bio
Joseph A. Brown, S. J., Ph.D. a native of East St. Louis, Illinois, is a Catholic priest with an extensive academic and pastoral career. When he graduated from St. Louis University with the BA in Philosophy, he attended Johns Hopkins University, where he gained a Master's Degree in Creative Writing. After his ordination to the priesthood (1972) he taught Theater and Poetry at Creighton University for several years (eventually becoming artist-in-residence in 1978). Later, after receiving both the Master's degree in Afro-American Studies and the Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University, Fr. Brown taught at the University of Virginia and at Xavier University in New Orleans.
Presently he is a Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale.
In the Fall of 2009, he was the holder of the MacLean Chair of Jesuit Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. During his fall semester residency, he was a member of the SJU Department of English. Beginning in 2014, Joseph A. Brown, SJ; Ph. D., became the founding Chair of the 1917 Centennial Commission & Cultural Initiative, Inc. The Commission which coordinates activities commemorating the 1917 East St. Louis Race Riots, bringing to light the circumstances and aftermath of the bloody pogrom which was one of the most significant examples of domestic terrorism in U. S. history. He is the author of “The Sankofa Muse.”
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