Black Evidence: A History and a Warning

Black Evidence: A History and a Warning

A Conversation between author Dr. Candis Watts Smith and Dr. Tyson Brown

Join us at the Durham County Main Library to hear Duke Professor of Political Science Candis Watts Smith discuss her recent book, Black Evidence: A History and a Warning (2026, W.W. Norton). The conversation will be facilitated by Professor Tyson Brown, Director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke. Copies of the book will be available for sale on site, supported by Letters Community Bookshop.

From the publisher's website:

"From Reconstruction to Redemption, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, from 2020’s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society, Americans regularly experience periods of racial reckoning followed by walloping retrenchment.

In Black Evidence, political scientist Candis Watts Smith shows that this pattern is the result of an American habit: denying the truths about our society that Black people experience and remember. Smith then delivers a warning: the effects of this habit ripple out, dulling our ability to identify the signs of authoritarianism and heightening our tolerance for cruelty. Still, she shows how these same truths offer models to overcome our repeated predicament."

Free and open to all.

Registration is required. The registration link is on the DCL event page and also below.

This event is co-sponsored by Forum @ FHI, Duke Human Rights Center @ FHI, International Comparative Studies, and the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity in partnership with the Durham County Library.