May 10
Convocation: Andra Gillespie
Andra Gillespie, associate professor of political science at Emory University, researches the political leadership of the post-civil rights generation. She edited and contributed to Whose Black Politics? Cases in Post-Racial Black Leadership, which features case studies of prominent black elected officials born after 1960 to shed light on the advent of a new generation of black political leadership. She is also the author of The New Black Politician: Cory Booker, Newark and Post-Racial America, which examines the evolution of black politics in Newark, New Jersey to gain a deeper understanding of the connection between racial solidarity, vote choice and policy preferences. More recently, she published Race and the Obama Administration: Substance, Symbols and Hope, which examines the representation of African American interests in the Obama Administration. Gillespie addresses the question of whether the advent of a new generation of black political leadership will actually lead to substantive political changes in the black community in her presentation titled 'Why Symbolic Politics Matters.'