Online Event: https://zoom.us/j/92599498450

California-based historians Jon Wiener and Daniel Widener discuss their books dealing with timely topics of race, culture and social justice.

Wiener wrote Conspiracy in the Streets: The Extraordinary Trial of the Chicago Seven (2006). Reprinted to coincide with the release of Aaron Sorkin's Netflix film, this book provides the political background of this infamous trial, narrating the utter craziness of the courtroom and revealing both the humorous antics and the serious politics involved. An afterword by the late Tom Hayden examines the trial's ongoing relevance, and drawings by Jules Feiffer help recreate the electrifying atmosphere of the courtroom. Wiener also wrote Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties (released in August 2020). Los Angeles in the sixties was a hotbed of political and social upheaval. The city was a launchpad for Black Power—where Malcolm X and Angela Davis first came to prominence and the Watts uprising shook the nation. The city was home to the Chicano Blowouts and Chicano Moratorium, as well as being the birthplace of “Asian American” as a political identity. It was a locus of the antiwar movement, gay liberation movement, and women’s movement, and, of course, the capital of California counterculture.

Widener's books include Black Arts West: Culture and Struggle in Postwar Los Angeles 1942-1992. Focusing on the lives and work of black writers, visual artists, musicians, and filmmakers, Daniel Widener tells how black cultural politics changed over time, and how altered political realities generated new forms of artistic and cultural expression. His narrative is filled with figures invested in the politics of black art and culture in postwar Los Angeles, including not only African American artists but also black nationalists, affluent liberal whites, elected officials, and federal bureaucrats.