In this episode, we are joined by Karlos K. Hill, who spoke with the MSU community in a zoom webinar about his recent comic, The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History.
Karlos spoke with us about the life and legacy of Emmett; about bearing witness to and doing deep justice work to narratives of racial violence; the absolute necessity of community-engaged scholarship; and enhancing the pedagogical opportunities to graphic histories with archival, supplementary, and educational materials.
Since this episode is part of our webinar series we’re doing this year, we’re going to preserve the conversation a little more than normal. We give brief intros to Graphic Possibilities, then Julian gives a wonderful introduction to Karlos, and then we jump into our interview.
This episode is a little longer as a result, but it’s worth every minute of your time, I promise. Enjoy!
Karlos K. Hill is an associate professor and chair of the Clara Luper Department of African and African-American Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. He is a community-engaged scholar and historian of the history of lynching, racial violence, and their legacies in the black experience.
Hill has helped create an infrastructure to help provide high-level training on teaching the Tulsa Race Massacre through the annual Tulsa Race Massacre Oklahoma Teachers Summer Institute. Several hundred Oklahoma educators have participated in the summer institute, impacting thousands of middle school and high school students.
Hill is the author of three books, Beyond the Rope: The Impact of Lynching on Black Culture and Memory, The Murder of Emmett Till: A Graphic History and The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre: A Photographic History, which will be released in March. He is a board member for the Tulsa Race Massacre Centennial Commission, the Clara Luper Legacy Committee, and the Board of Scholars for Facing History and Ourselves.
You can find out more about his work at his personal website.
