The Institute for Ethnic Studies' 2025 Spring Celebration:
Celebrating 100 Years of Malcolm X, Omaha, & Global Black Freedom:
A Conversation with Dr. Erik S. McDuffie
Associate Professor of History
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
5:00pm
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Wick Alumni Center
Drawing from his new book The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the US Heartland, and Global Black Freedom (Duke, 2024), our visiting guest Dr. Erik S. McDuffie and UNL historians Dr. Jeannette Eileen Jones and Dr. Patrick Jones will discuss the significance of Omaha in shaping the life and legacy of the preeminent Black nationalist spokesperson Malcolm X on the eve of the centenary of his birth in Nebraska’s largest city.
Dr. McDuffie will discuss the diasporic journeys of Malcolm X's parents, Louise and Earl Little, and how their grassroots involvement in Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), together with their encounters in Omaha, laid the foundations for Malcolm’s Black radical internationalism. Through tracing his early years, the discussion will highlight the underappreciated importance of Omaha and, more broadly, the Midwest in advancing global Black freedom, then and now.
We are grateful to OASIS and The Gaughan Multicultural Center for their generous co-sponsorship of this lecture.
Professor McDuffie's books will be available for purchase and signing, the Institute's annual awards will be given, and UNL associate professor Luis Othoniel Rosa will read a very brief sneak preview from his forthcoming collection of poetry. Everyone is warmly welcome.