Biography

Jeb Middlebrook is an antiracist scholar, organizer, and poet. He is managing editor of American Quarterly: The Journal of the American Studies Association, and director of the Solidarity Institute, a national organization that uses research, events, and projects to connect diverse communities in a collective vision for social justice. Middlebrook holds a B.A. in Ethnic Studies from the University of Minnesota and a M.A. in American Studies & Ethnicity from the University of Southern California, where he is a Ph.D. candidate.

His current book manuscript, Challenging White Supremacy: Multiracial Alliance and Antiracist Organizing in the U.S., examines five historical events from 1966-2008 as cultural texts to understand attempts at alliance between people-of-color grassroots member organizations and white grassroots member organizations to recruit, politicize, and mobilize their respective constituencies for coordinated antiracist action. At a time when organizing across race succeeded in electing the first black president of the United States, but fails to resolve continuing racial inequalities, this project offers an analysis of the possibilities and limitations of multiracial alliances for shifting collective consciousness and power in regards to race.

Middlebrook's academic interests include race, social movements, and popular culture, which span the disciplines of Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology, and History. He has given talks to thousands of people across the U.S. and on college campuses including Yale, Berkeley and the Universities of Minnesota, St. Louis, and Kansas, and has been a regular speaker at the annual White Privilege Conference.

In 2009, the Solidarity Institute under the direction of Middlebrook partnered with a community organization, the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, to publish a free, online archive of historical materials related to antiracist organizing since the 1960s. The project will be completed in 2010 and will be housed at www.solidarityinstitute.org.

Middlebrook has organized against racism in a variety of community campaigns around the U.S. including fighting for college loans for undocumented students in Minnesota, rights for ex-prisoners in California, fairness in high school suspensions in Connecticut, housing and minimum wage increases in Wisconsin, and free health testing in Kansas. He has also helped develop white antiracist discussion groups in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Minnesota and California.

Middlebrook has received antiracist training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, and the Challenging White Supremacy workshop, and is a current member of the Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere - Los Angeles (AWARE-LA) which is building a national movement of white people who are willing to speak out against racism.

Since 2007, Middlebrook has served as adjunct faculty at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he has taught "Introduction to Whiteness Studies." From 2006-2008, he taught classes on race and ethnicity at the University of Southern California including “America, the Frontier, and the New West”, “Exploring Culture Through Film”, and “Race and Class in Los Angeles”.

In 2003, Middlebrook co-founded a spoken word and hip-hop group, AntiRacist 15 (AR-15), as a project of the Solidarity Institute. AntiRacist 15 produces poetry and discussions to create antiracist culture on campuses and in local communities. In addition to lecturing, he tours as a poet with AntiRacist 15 and has worked with major-label recording artists Just Blaze, KRS-One, dead prez, and The Coup. The debut album from AntiRacist 15, Stand in Solidarity, was released on iTunes in 2008.

Middlebrook has received national recognition for his work from the Ford Foundation, the Harry S. Truman Foundation, NBC, ABC, Associated Press, MTV Networks, Complex Magazine, and Hot 97 Radio in New York. He has been featured in the television program VH1’s The (White) Rapper Show, the film Mirrors of Privilege: Making Whiteness Visible, and the books Other People’s Property: A Shadow History of Hip-Hop in White America and Beacons in the Storm: White Educator Activists Working for Racial Justice.

Publications

Viewable here: http://www.jebmiddlebrook.com/category/publications