The Freeman Lecture was established in 1993 in memory of Adreneé Glover Freeman, a Columbia attorney who was active in civic affairs and served on the community advisory board of the USC Women’s Studies Program.

The lecture is free and open to the public.
Ransby is an historian, writer, and longtime political activist. She received a B.A. from Columbia University in New York and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan. She is the author of a widely acclaimed biography of civil rights activist and intellectual Ella Baker, entitled Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision. The book has won numerous national awards, including the Joan Kelley Memorial Prize, the James R. Rawley Prize, and the Liberty-Legacy Foundation Award. She serves on the editorial board of the London-based journal Race and Class. Her essays have appeard in numerous journals and anthologies, including Race and Reason, Black Women in America, and The American Radical.

In addition to scholarly publications, Ransby is a freelance writer who has had her work published in the The Black Scholar, Southern Exposure, New Directions for Women, and These Times. She writes for the Progressive Media Project, based in Madison, Wisconsin, which distributes weekly opinion editorials to Knight-Ridder newspapers across the country. She has published editorials in over a dozen newspapers, including The Denver Post, The Houston Chronicle, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, USA Today, and The Miami Herald. Her articles address a range of subjects, including African American politics and history, women’s issues, popular culture, welfare and poverty, and strategies for social change. She has spoken at numerous conferences on college campuses across the country, and has appeared as a political commentator on a range of radio and television shows.

Ransby’s visit is co-sponsored by the USC College of Liberal Arts, the Department of History, and the African American Studies Program.

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