Q&A With Casey Nichols

This Black History Month we’re highlighting Black stories and amplifying Black voices. The following is a Q&A with Casey D. Nichols, assistant professor of history at Texas State University and author of Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post–Civil Rights America publishing next month, but available for pre-order now.

What led you to write Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America?

Poverty Rebels is inspired by the community and local political debates about Black-Brown relations I witnessed growing up in Long Beach, California. Questions about how to share space, how to meet the needs of both African American and Latinx students, and who should lead multiracial neighborhoods in government were commonplace. I first researched this topic during my undergraduate studies at California State University, Long Beach, where I completed original research as a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. Attending Stanford for my PhD in history, which has a reputation for research in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, allowed me to continue this work.

What was your goal for the book when you started, and did it change over time?

My original goal was to interrogate long-standing debates about whether conflict or cooperation characterizes relationships between African Americans and Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. However, conducting archival research revealed that Black-Brown relations was much bigger than my original research question. Poverty Rebels traces the evolution of debates about Black-Brown since the mid-1960s, specifically focusing on grassroots civil rights and economic justice activism around the War on Poverty. I argue that the mid-1960s ushered in a period when people around the US began paying closer attention to relationships between African Americans and Mexican Americans, setting off the very debates I witnessed growing up in Los Angeles decades later.

What did you find surprising while researching/writing this book?

I am very excited to join a cohort of scholars researching relationships between communities of color. I was surprised by the ingenuity and resourcefulness required to write a book about two groups underrepresented in the archives. I hope future and current researchers learn two important lessons from my work. First, students and readers will see that this type of historical research is possible. Second, I want students and readers to see the unique stories we can tell when we combine fields of study, like Black and Latinx History.

Do you have any favorite quotes or passages from the book?

I have several favorite quotes that come to life in Poverty Rebels. A specific quote that comes to mind during Black History Month is by Martin Luther King, Jr., whose perspective can often be distorted in popular culture. While my book does not prominently feature King, he emerges as an essential connecting thread for collaborations between Black and Brown movements for economic justice. In planning for the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967, King stated, “What we now need is a new kind of Selma or Birmingham to dramatize the economic plight of the Negro, and compel the government to act.” This quote is an excellent example of how King evolved as an activist and drew inspiration from some of the Black and Brown urban resistance movements I describe in my work.

What are some of the key takeaways or insights that readers can expect to gain from reading your book?

One of the critical skills historians teach through our work is that the past is messy and complex. Readers will gain further insight into how and why dialogue about the relationship between African Americans and Mexican Americans emerged in popular and political discourse. Readers will gain a greater sense of the richness and impact of Black-Brown relations on racial and economic equality movements.

What piece of advice would you offer authors that are currently writing their first book?

Writing a book takes time, even when transforming a dissertation into a book. A significant part of the process is thinking about the overall narrative thread, carefully documenting connections, and crafting an accessible argument.

What are you working on next/now?

I am currently working on a project tentatively titled “Motherhood Menace: Black and Brown Women’s Activism as a Politics of Love.” Continuing my work of placing African American and Latinx history into conversation, this project interrogates the intellectual roots and political implications of widely circulated archetypes about Black women and Latinas.