Date: Thursday, January 29th, 2026
Time: 5:00 – 6:30pm Location: Smith Warehouse, Ahmadieh Family Lecture Hall, Bay 4; 114 S Buchanan Blvd, Durham, NC
In 1974, a twenty-year-old Black woman named Joan Little found herself facing the death penalty for killing a white guard who had tried to rape her in an eastern North Carolina prison. The folks who campaigned on Little’s behalf understood the webs of sexual violence, state violence, and racialized carcerality that ensnared her, and they linked her trial to other sites of existential concern for Black women’s—and everyone’s—liberation. Her August 1975 acquittal spoke to the power of their critique and the reach of their organizing. 2025 marks the fiftieth anniversary of this landmark case that still offers lessons in the struggle for justice. Join historian Christina Greene, Ph.D. ’96, and death penalty lawyer Shelagh Kenney to discuss what Joan Little tells us about gender, incarceration, and state violence then and now.
Christina Greene is professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and author of Free Joan Little: The Politics of Race, Sexual Violence, and Imprisonment; Shelagh Kenney, is Interim Director of the Center for Death Penalty Litigation. Adriane Lentz-Smith, Associate Professor of History and African & African American Studies at Duke University, will introduce and moderate the discussion.
In addition to the panel, an exhibition of items related to Joan Little, including one of her handwritten, illustrated poems, will be on display in Perkins Library during the month of January 2026.
Header image: “Abolish Women’s Prisons” photograph of protestors outside of the NC Correctional Institution for Women, The News and Observer – Raleigh Times, November 1974. Nancy Blood Papers, Box 3, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.
The History of Medicine Collections recently received the Thomas Bashore, M.D., Collection of Artifacts. Dr. Bashore is Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the Duke University Medical School, where he specialized in treatment of cardiovascular conditions and congenital heart disease. He first began collecting historic medical artifacts, such as mechanical devices relating to electrotherapy and cardiology, and expanded his collection to include fringe medical instruments and treatments.
Please join us on Wednesday, October 29, at 4:30 p.m. to celebrate the Thomas Bashore Collection. Dr. Bashore will provide remarks.
The United Nations considers intellectual freedom to be a basic human right through Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which asserts: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”
Libraries in particular value intellectual freedom as part of their mission to provide and protect access to information and ideas. According to the American Library Association intellectual freedom is an integral component of a democratic society, protecting an individual’s right to access, explore, consider, and express ideas and information as the basis for a self-governing, well-informed citizenry. Yet there is an intensification of threats to intellectual freedom across the United States, with pressure on curriculum and research, book and program challenges, and censorship attempts continuing to reach unprecedented levels.
This year’s Janie K. Long Speaker Series program will focus on the impact of challenges to intellectual freedom on higher education and the steps we can take to support students, faculty, staff, and other members of our community. We will also honor Duke Alumnus Harry H. Harkins Jr, T’73 longtime supporter of LGBTQ+ library collections, scholars, and this event series.
Speakers: Robin Koshelev, Duke undergraduate researcher, Dr. Janie K. Long, Duke faculty emerita, Dr. Joseph Salem, University Librarian, Dr. Pete Sigal, Department of History; moderated by author, journalist, and Duke alumnus Steven Petrow.
Sponsored by: Duke University Libraries, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke Department of History, and the Duke Program for Scholars and Publics.
Post contributed by Madeline Huh, Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Intern.
As this year’s Trent History of Medicine Intern, I was given the exciting opportunity to curate an exhibit for the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I’m pleased to say that my exhibit, entitled “Defiant Bodies: Discourses on Intersex, 1573-2003,” is now open to the public in the Rubenstein Library. The exhibit explores changing dialogues around nonbinary sex and intersex identity over six centuries, from early modern medicine to 21st-century activism and (some of) the many interdisciplinary representations in between. There is also an online version of the exhibit, which you can explore here.
Thank you to all who have helped me during the process of creating this exhibit, especially Rachel Ingold, Meg Brown, Yoon Kim, and Grace Zayobi–I am very grateful for all your feedback along the way and your consistent willingness to engage in discussion with me on this complicated and important topic with such sensitivity.
“Defiant Bodies” will be on view from May 13, 2025 to October 4, 2025 in the Josiah Charles Trent History of Medicine Room. I am so very excited for you to explore it in-person and online!
Post contributed by Ama Kyereme, Curatorial Intern for the Archive of Documentary Arts (24-25) and curator of “Movement and Memory Through the Lens of Danny Lyon.” The exhibit is on display in the Rubenstein Library Photography Gallery through November 2, 2025.
In 1962, Danny Lyon, then a college student at university of Chicago, hitchhiked from Chicago to Cairo, Illinois, to document segregation to document segregation, and to join the Civil Rights Movement. Brought in by James Forman to work as the first staff photographer for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Lyon traveled across the U.S. South documenting the conditions that initially prompted him to action. Armed with his camera, he made his way into spaces that his Black colleagues typically couldn’t go. From the Leesburg Stockade in Virginia to the Toddle House diner sit-in in Atlanta, the photographs Lyon made captured the ethos of the civil rights era. Facing hostile police and armed guards wielding bayonets, Lyon often placed himself in the middle of action to represent in photographs what he was experiencing.
Peaceful protests are foundational to the Civil Rights Movement, but violence is inextricable to the Movement’s history. That violence, both visible and invisible, is on full display in several photographs selected for this exhibition, from protests arrests to the funeral for the girls bombed in Birmingham, AL. While Lyon did not hold back from documenting the volatility of the revolution as he witnessed it, he focused his camera on capturing the Movement as it was to him and those around him. He directed the camera just as much towards moments of stillness, depicting the reality of the Movement within the image, as well as between and beyond the frame. He made evidence of organizing, protesting, rest, grief, and celebration, all equally deliberate actions towards an investment in an imagined future. Many of the images Danny created during this period became synonymous with SNCC and the Civil Rights Movement, and through their circulation were key in bringing about social and political change. The images of the young girls imprisoned in the Leesburg Stockade in Virginia were critical in making the public aware of the condition these girls were in, and ultimately led to their release. In this way, there is a cycle of action that Danny’s photographs take part in. Danny’s impulse to follow the action leads him to take photographs, and in turn he takes action through the intervention of taking a photograph. The photograph then goes on to act as a catalyst for other social and political action based on the content of the image. In addition to the iconic and spectacular images of the era, this exhibit includes images that provide a more comprehensive narrative of SNCC activism, through depictions of the South as a geographic hub, the role of women and youth, and the involvement of the church and religion as equally critical parts of the Civil Rights Movement.
Post contributed by Grace Zayobi, Exhibitions Intern
When I started my internship with exhibitions, I expected some difficult topics. History is complex and the way people represent history is even more complex. So, constructing exhibits based on these topics is no laughing matter. But my first assignment being something so close to home was unexpected.
Even though I was born here and grew up in the US, my mother immigrated here in 1990s from the Democratic Republic Congo (DRC) While my opinions can’t hold as much weight as someone who was born and raised in the DRC, I grew up in a mixture of Congolese and American culture in a multi-generational household where there were Congolese immigrants coming in and out. I’ve seen how their lives are affected by what is happening in the DRC and I want to be able to carry their voices so their stories can eventually be heard.
So, imagine my surprise when my first task was to support the exhibition Joseph Conrad’s Polish-Ukrainian “Graveyard”: Memory, Mourning, and Anti-Colonial Resistance in his 19th-Century Family Photo Album. Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) might not be a name well known in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) but to a lot of Congolese-Americans he is somewhat familiar. He wrote The Heart of Darkness but that’s not what the exhibit is about. This exhibit is about his own tragedy: he faced being stripped of his rights, losing his parents, and being forced from his home. You can feel his apathy for humanity when reading his book, and maybe this exhibit will truly contextualize why he feels that way.
This post isn’t about Joseph Conrad, it’s about the people in Joseph Conrad’s book The Heart of Darkness; although Belgium or the Congo are never named in the book, that is what the book is about. As much as Conrad suffered, it seemed he still saw Congolese as inferior people. I read his book and felt like he saw the Congolese as unworthy of humanity, but their colonizers were just as unworthy as he felt the Congolese were. I still think the book holds anti-colonial viewpoints that may have been controversial at the time but all I can see is a man who thought of my people as less than human.
The Congo is the quintessential colonial massacre story. But rather than telling actual stories of the people, the Congo is often used as a metaphor. When King Leopold II of Belgium took over in the year 1885 it helped spark the “Scramble for Africa,” a time period where European countries brought parts of Africa under their control. His cruelty led to a humanitarian crisis which activists protested until he relinquished his control in 1908. One of the first nations to back Leopold’s control of Congo was America, and a lot of other countries followed suit and supported Leopold’s private colony. The destabilization caused by outside governments interfering, the stripping of resources, and violent conflicts with neighboring countries can all be traced back to the Belgian occupation. It has left the Congo in ruins; we should see it has one of Africa’s first colonial tragedies.
Although the protests and interest in the Congo seemingly decreased, the humanitarian crisis continues to be relevant today. A lot of people consider Congo hard to talk about because there are no easy answers, no easy way to protest, no simple ways to make a difference.
Just reading this blog post is listening to Congolese voices. What else can you do? Methods of protests are highly debated. So just starting your education is important. Adam Hochschild’s King Leopold’s Ghost is a great place to start reading. Hochschild talks about the impacts of Leopold’s rule and the formation of the group that fought against his ownership of DRC.
But Congolese stories written by Congolese people must be highlighted too. While all these recommendations may not be about the crisis in Congo, they are all written by Congolese people. And they are all affected by that tragedy, and you can see elements of that in their writing. Some books include:
How Dare the Sun Rise: Memoirs of a War Child by Sandra Uwiringiyimana and Abigail Pesta. With assistance from Pesta, Uwiringiyimana writes about her experience surviving the Second Congo War, and her life in America has a refugee.
JJ Bola is the Kinshasa-born British author of Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined. As well as writing about gender in society he is also a fiction author and a poet that touches on his time as a refugee.
Tram 83 is the debut novel of Fiston Mwanza Mujila. Originally, he wrote in French, but his book has been translated and several languages and spread internationally. Tram 83 is about a group that tries to profit off of their unnamed mining town in Congo. Though the novel is fiction, it carries critiques about colonialism and capitalism that are relevant to the real-life Congo. Mujila’s capabilities have earned him the role of a professor of African literature in Graz, Austria where he lives now.
Koli Jean Bofane’s Congo Inc. : Bismarck’s Testament is a satirical novel about a young Congolese man who turns his life into a game in hopes of making enough money to leave his small village. This novel is both funny and tragic, it ruthlessly shows how the Scramble for Africa effects African lives to this day.
Working on the Joseph Conrad exhibit was a chance for me to learn more about him in the same way this blog post is a chance for you to learn more about people like me. All I can hope that you take away from this is to give Congo a chance to be cared about.
Holsti-Anderson Family Assembly Room, Rubenstein Library 153
Day Two: Friday, March 26, 2025, 11am-2pm
Gothic Reading Room, Rubenstein Library 2nd Floor
Visitors will be able to browse special selections from our collections by and about Black lives. Chat with Rubenstein Library staff and explore rare first edition books, published works exploring Black life in Durham, publications by Black students at Duke, and more!
Post contributed by Ani Karagianis, Centennial Archivist, Duke University Archives.
[A small exhibit related to this blog post can be viewed near the Perkins Library service desk for the next month.]
Recently, the Rubenstein Library put up a small exhibit about the Greensboro Woolworth Sit-ins in February 1960. Since I participated in the creation of the exhibit, naturally, I wanted to look more into the early sit-ins and other movements of the early 1960s. It is here where I can say that there is a Duke angle to some subsequent events after the sit-ins. Duke angle #1: Professor William Chafe of the history department. Bill Chafe, who wrote a great book that I was able to devour during the holidays (Civilities and Civil Rights) interviewed three of the four members of the Greensboro Four: Ezell Blair Jr. (known as Jibreel Khazan), Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond. Rather than having me write about their interviews and their experiences of the sit-in, I have provided the readers with some snapshots of them speaking about their experiences in Greensboro, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and the Woolworth sit-ins. These oral histories can be found in box two of the William Chafe Oral History collection.
Some good soundbites courtesy of these interviews:
Jibreel Khazan (labeled as “Jabriel Kajan”, 1974, speaking about his youth NAACP council and providing a little background of the idea behind the protest:
Joseph McNeill, 1978, reflecting on the movement the role of the Greensboro community:
David Richmond, 1972, providing a breakdown of the day’s plans:
Please join us for our next Trent History of Medicine Event, a symposium celebrating Remarkable Stories of American Black Surgeons in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries.
Speakers include:
Jill L. Newmark, “Without Concealment, Without Compromise: Black Civil War Surgeons”
Margaret Humphreys, “Searching for Dr. Harris”
Todd L. Savitt, “Entering a ‘White’ Profession: African American Physicians in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries”
Jill L. Newmark is an independent historian and former Curator and Exhibition Specialist at the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. She has curated numerous exhibitions and written several articles on African American medical personnel who served during the American Civil War.
Margaret Humphreys is the Josiah Charles Trent Distinguished Professor of the History of Medicine in the School of Medicine at Duke University, as well as Professor of History, Professor of Medicine, and affiliate with the Duke Global Health Institute. A specialist in the history of science and medicine, she has focused her research and publications primarily on infectious disease in the U.S. and the American south, as well as the history of medicine during the American Civil War.
Todd L. Savitt is an historian of medicine with a particular interest in African-American medical history. He is professor in the Department of Bioethics and Interdisciplinary Studies in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University.
There is no registration required. The event will be recorded.
Sponsored by Duke University History Department, the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities & History of Medicine, and the History of Medicine Collections in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
Dispatches from the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Duke University
