51ΑΤΖζ

Presented by Dr. Joe Trotter Jr.

Friday, April 17, 2026
4:30 – 6:00 p.m., Reception to Follow
Alumni Fireside Lounge – 51ΑΤΖζ Student Union
2200 East 51ΑΤΖζ.

Dr. Joe William Trotter, Jr. is the Giant Eagle University Professor of History and Social Justice and past History Department Chair at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the director and founder of Carnegie Mellon’sΒ Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the EconomyΒ (CAUSE) and past president of both the Urban History Association and the Labor and Working Class History Association.

This lecture is based upon Dr. Trotter’s recent book, Building the Black City: The Transformation of American Life (California, 2024).Β  While contemporary urban and labor studies acknowledge the impact of Black labor on the built environment of American cities, both Β scholars and the larger public have found it more difficult to conceptualize predominantly poor and working class Black urbanites as β€œCity-Builders.”  Hence, this talk will underscore how African Americans double-taxed their own labor and built their own city within the city to serve their own needs.Β  Whereas the case for reparations is usually based on land dispossession, unpaid and underpaid labor, this lecture will move the notion of a β€œBlack City” from the periphery to the center of the case for reparatory justice for descendants of African people β€œenslaved” and later β€œJim Crowed” in the United States of America.Β  As such, the case for reparations, he concludes, must also include a focus on the creativity of Black people as β€œCity-Builders” in their own interests as well as exploited workers.

The Dean’s Distinguished Lecture in the Humanities is made possible by generous funding from the Vilas Trust.