Dr. Katherine Bynum, a distinguished scholar in social and historical perspectives, will visit The University of Texas at Dallas to lecture on the multiracial coalition against police violence in Dallas.
The lecture “Unite and Be Free: The Formation of a Multiracial Coalition Against Police Violence in Dallas” will occur at the Jonsson Performance Hall (JO 2.604) on March 21 at 6:30 p.m.
Dr. Bynum holds the position of assistant professor of history at Arizona State University’s School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious Studies. Her research centers on the struggles for freedom among Black and Brown communities, examining topics such as the carceral state and oral history.
While working as a researcher and interviewer for the Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project, Dr. Bynum met Dr. Kimberly Hill, associate professor of U.S. and African American History at UT Dallas. This connection led to an invitation for Dr. Bynum to serve as a guest speaker in Dr. Hill’s Topics in African and African-American History – Civil Rights Movement in Texas (HIST 4357) class last Fall.
“I watched some of the interviews through the Black and Brown website and was impressed by her interview skills,” Dr. Hill said. “I thought she would be a great example for students of somebody knowledgeable in local history, but also somebody who demonstrates ways to get the community engaged in scholarship.”
The March 21 lecture will focus on Dallas’s history post-1973, with a particular emphasis on a multiracial coalition that aimed for accountability and reform following a series of police-involved shootings. At the forefront of this coalition was a high-profile case, the July 24, 1973, murder of a child named Santos Rodriguez by former Dallas PD officer Darrell Cain.
“Protests against police brutality have been high profile in Dallas,” Dr. Hill said. “The death of Santos Rodriguez is representative of this ongoing conversation over how we imagine safety in this city and how people start conversations with local government.”
In her forthcoming book, Dr. Bynum analyzes the civil rights movement and its accomplishments over the past 50 years through interviews with local leaders. Notably, she interviewed most key activists representing African-American and Tejano organizations in Dallas during the 70s.
Dr. Bynum was the 2022-2023 recipient of the Summerfield G. Roberts Fellow for the Study of Texas History at the Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University. She published a chapter entitled “Civil Rights in the City of Hate: Black and Brown Organizing against Police Brutality in Texas, 1967-1987” for the edited anthology Civil Rights in Black and Brown: Histories of Liberation and Struggle in Texas (UT Press, 2021).
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