Kellie Carter Jackson is a historian and writer (author of 'We Refuse') whose work centers Black resistance, abolition, and the political meaning of freedom in American history. Shennette Garrett-Scott is a historian and author whose scholarship explores Black women’s economic power, labor, and political life beyond traditional civil rights narratives. What unfolded on that stage was not a polite author talk—it was a bracing reminder that history has teeth. Writing We Refuse in the heat of 2020, Kellie Carter Jackson rejects what she calls the “trauma porn” of American racial storytelling and replaces it with something far more unsettling: proof that Black resistance has always been deliberate, strategic, and ordinary. Again and again, she dismantles the comforting myth that Black people merely endured injustice quietly, arguing instead that refusal—through protection, flight, revolution, community care, and even joy—has been constant, if deliberately obscured. The most arresting moments arrive when scholarship meets memory: a great-grandmother who chose a child’s life with a limp over lifelong bondage; a grandmother whose loaded pistol complicates sentimental ideas of Southern gentility; siblings lost, whose names anchor grief as a form of resistance. Kellie Carter Jackson’s point is devastatingly clear: white supremacy is not only mobs and violence, but erasure, coercion, and “niceness” masquerading as morality. And yet, the conversation never collapses into despair. It insists that liberation is collective, that joy is a discipline, and that the most radical threat to injustice has always been an educated, cared-for, and politically conscious people. The result is less a lecture than a reckoning—one that refuses easy answers and demands a wider imagination of what freedom has always required. This episode is part of the ongoing conversations hosted by Baldwin & Co., a Black-owned bookstore, café, and cultural institution based in New Orleans. Baldwin & Co. exists at the intersection of literature, ideas, and community—creating space for rigorous dialogue, storytelling, and intellectual exchange. Through author talks, podcasts, live events, and community programming, Baldwin & Co. amplifies voices shaping how we understand culture, history, politics, faith, and the future. Stay connected with Baldwin & Co. across platforms: Instagram: @baldwinandcoX (Twitter): @baldwinandcoFacebook: Baldwin & Co.YouTube: Baldwin & Co.Website: www.baldwinandcobooks.com Visit us in New Orleans or online to support independent bookselling, discover powerful literature, and engage in conversations that matter. #WeRefuse #BlackResistance #RadicalHistory #BlackHistoryToldRight #FreedomIsCollective #JusticeNotRevenge #WhiteSupremacyExposed #LiberationThinking #AbolitionNow #HistoryWithTeeth #IntellectualResistance #BlackJoyAsResistance #CommunityCare #PoliticalEducation #StoriesTheyErased #TruthOverComfort #BooksThatChallengePower #BaldwinAndCoPodcast #IdeasInConversation #ReadToResist #CulturalReckoning #BookBans #AttacksOnBlackHistory #EnvironmentalJustice #VoterSuppression #MassIncarceration #DemocracyInCrisis #FreeSpeechMatters #EducationUnderFire #WhoseHistory #PowerAndNarrative
