Drawing from his new book The Second Battle for Africa: Garveyism, the US Heartland, and Global Black Freedom (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. McDuffie and UNL associate professor Patrick Jones will discuss the significance of Omaha in shaping the life and legacy of the preeminent Black nationalist spokesperson Malcolm X on the eve of the centenary of his birth in Nebraska’s largest city.

Dr. McDuffie will discuss the diasporic journeys of Malcolm X’s parents, Louise and Earl Little, and how their grassroots involvement in Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA), together with their encounters in Omaha, laid the foundations for Malcolm’s Black radical internationalism. Through tracing his early years, the discussion will highlight the underappreciated importance of Omaha and, more broadly, the Midwest in advancing global Black freedom, then and now.

The Institute’s annual awards will be given, and UNL associate professor Luis Othoniel Rosa will read a very brief sneak preview from his new collection of poetry.