The Future of Black Space on the Internet

Please join the Department of Africana Studies for a discussion about The Future of Black Space on the Internet with Special Guest: Dr. Quintard Taylor, founder, BlackPast.org.

Moderator: Gabriel Selassie, CSUN Assistant Professor, Department of Africana Studies

Special Guest: Dr. Quintard Taylor, founder, BlackPast.org .

About BlackPast.org

In 2007, Dr. Quintard Taylor and other volunteers launched an online resource center for African American history called BlackPast.org. With well over 10,000 pages of information, BlackPast.org is the most extensive online source on African American history currently available.  It brings the resources of African American history into every classroom in the world and makes every computer, regardless of its location, a classroom in African American history.

About Quintard Taylor

Quintard Taylor, the Scott and Dorothy Bullitt Professor of American History at the University of Washington, Seattle is originally from Brownsville, Tennessee. He received his B.A. from St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, North Carolina, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota where he studied with Allen Issacman, Lansine Kaba, Allen Spear and Stuart Schwartz.

Taylor has more than forty years of teaching experience in African American history and specifically African Americans in the American West. His previous positions have included Washington State University, California Polytechnic State University, the University of Oregon (where he was chair of the Department of History from 1997 to 1999) and the University of Lagos (Fulbright-Hays Fellowship). He has also authored two books, In Search of The Racial Frontier: African Americans in the American West, 1528-1990 and The Forging of A Black Community: Seattle’s Central District from 1870 through the Civil Rights Era.  He has edited two anthologies, Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California and African American Women Confront the West, 1600-2000.  In 2008 he published a two-volume collection of primary documents titled From Timbuktu to Katrina: Readings in African American History. The following year his book, America-I-Am, Black Facts: The Story of a People Through Timelines, 1601-2000 appeared.  Along with Dr. Samuel Kelly, Taylor co-authored Dr. Sam: The Autobiography of Dr. Samuel Kelly, Soldier, Educator, Advocate and Friend in 2010.

Taylor has also written over fifty articles on western African American history, 20th Century African American history, African and Afro-Brazilian history. His articles have appeared in the Western Historical Quarterly, Pacific Historical Review, Oregon Historical Quarterly, The Annals of the American Academy orf Political and Social Science, Journal of Negro History, Arizona and the West, Western Journal of Black Studies, the Journal of Ethnic Studies and Polish-American Studies among other journals. His current project, Urban Archipelago: a 20th Century History of the African American Urban West will be released by the University of Arizona Press.

Taylor currently serves on the Board of HistoryLink Interactive History Project.  His past board memberships have included the Northwest African American Museum (Seattle) and the Idaho Black History Museum (Boise).  He has been a member of the Council of the American Historical Association, and has served on the Board of Trustees of the Washington State Historical Society, and the Washington Territorial Commission. Taylor was a founding board member of the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas. See his Curriculum Vitae (.pdf) for details.

Communication Services

Communication services (sign language interpreters, note takers) are available for this event. Requests for services must be submitted at least five (5) working days in advance. Please contact Dr. Cedric Hackett, at cedric.hackett@csun.edu or call (818) 677-3311.