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Joe W. Trotter, Jr. will deliver the 2021 Diaspora Lecture and discuss his latest publication Workers on Arrival: Black Labor and the Making of America. From the ongoing issues of poverty, health, housing and employment to the recent upsurge of lethal police-community relations, the Black working class stands at the center of perceptions of social and racial conflict today. Journalists and public policy analysts often discuss the Black poor as “consumers” rather than “producers,” as “takers” rather than “givers,” and as “liabilities” instead of “assets.” In Workers on Arrival, Trotter refutes these perceptions by charting the black working class’s vast contributions to the making of America.

Joe William Trotter, Jr. is the Giant Eagle Professor of History and Social Justice and Founder and Director of the Center for Africanamerican Urban Studies and the Economy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Black Milwaukee and Coal, Class, and Color and past President of the Labor and Working Class History Association.

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