Spanning the early modern Atlantic world to post–World War II United States, this panel will examine how historical narratives shape contemporary perspectives on race and identity. Drawing on research that ranges from early eighteenth-century slavery to twentieth-century Black and Muslim liberation and the cultural politics of Black Power, the discussion will explore visions of freedom, solidarity, and resistance—and consider how these struggles inform our present and future.

Panelists:

• Alice Echols is a 20th-century American historian who has written extensively about the post-World War II period. She is best known for her cultural history of disco, Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of America, her biography of Janis Joplin, Scars of Sweet Paradise, and her first book, Daring to Be Bad, a history of the women’s liberation movement. Her sixth and most recent book is Black Power, White Heat: From Solidarity Politics to Radical Chic, which Oxford University Press published in January 2026. She is Professor Emerita, Department of History, Dornsife College, University of Southern California.
• Alaina M. Morgan is a historian whose research traces the global circulation of ideas about race, religion, and freedom across the twentieth century African diaspora and Atlantic world. She is the author of Atlantic Crescent: Building Geographies of Black and Muslim Liberation in the African Diaspora (UNC, 2025), which examines how Black people used Islam to dream of, and enact, liberatory futures. At the University of Southern California, Professor Morgan teaches courses on African-American history, race, the carceral state, empire, and Black radical traditions.
• Lindsay O'Neill is an associate professor (teaching) of history at USC. She works on the history of British expansion in the early eighteenth century. She is the author of The Two Princes of Mpfumo: An Early Eighteenth Century Journey into and out of Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) and The Opened Letter: Networking in the Early Modern British World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015).
• Hajar Yazdiha (moderator) is an Associate Professor of Sociology at USC and faculty affiliate of the Equity Research Institute, Black Studies Center, and Rutgers Center for Security, Race, and Rights. Hajar writes about the politics of belonging, examining the forces that bring us together and keep us apart as we work to forge collective futures. She is author of the multi-award winning book, The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Her public writing has been featured in outlets including The LA Times, NPR, Time Magazine, The Hill, The Guardian, and The Grio.

This panel is part of the 2026 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC.