Biography

Claudrena N. Harold is a professor of African American and African Studies and History .  In 2007, she published her first book, The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942. In 2013, the University of Virginia Press published The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration, a volume Harold coedited with Deborah E. McDowell and Juan Battle.  Her second monograph, New Negro Politics in the Jim Crow South, was published by the University of Georgia Press in 2016. In 2018, she and Louis Nelson coedited the volume, Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity. Her latest book is When Sunday Comes:  Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hop Eras (University of Illinois Press, 2020).

As a part of her ongoing work on the history of black student activism at UVA, she has written, produced, and co-directed with Kevin Everson nine short films: Sugarcoated Arsenic, Fastest Man in the State, 70 kg, U. Of Virginia, 1976, How Can We Ever Be Late, Black Bus Stop,  Hampton,  Pride, and We Demand. These films have screened at the National Gallery of Art, the Whitney Museum,  Berlin International Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival,  the London Film Festival,  the Vienna Shorts Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel, the Black Star Film Festival, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Vienna International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, Filmadrid International Film Festival, TIFF Lightbox,  Festival du Nouveau Cinema,  Hamburg International Short Film Festiva, the Media City Film Festival, and Porto Post Doc Film and Media Festival.

Publications

Books

When Sunday Comes: Gospel Music in the Soul and Hip-Hip Eras (University of Illinois Press, 2020). 

Co-editor with Louis Nelson. Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity (University of Virginia Press, 2018).

New Negro Politics in the Jim Crow South (University of Georgia Press, October 2016)

Co-editor with Deborah E. McDowell and Juan Battle, The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration (University of Virginia Press, 2013).

The Rise and Fall of the Garvey Movement in the Urban South, 1918-1942 (Routledge Press, 2007).

Articles and Book Chapters

 “The Civil Rights Movement in the Urban South.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of American History. Oxford University Press. Article published December 2018. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.013.594.

“No Ordinary Sacrifice: The Struggle for Racial Justice at the University of Virginia in the Post-Civil Rights Era,” in Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity, eds. Louis Nelson and Claudrena Harold (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2018): 133-145. 

“What About Us: African American Workers and the Struggle for Economic Justice in the Age of Diversity,” in Reconstruction and the Arc of Racial (In)justice(Jepson Studies in Leadership series), eds. Julian Maxwell Hayter and George R. Goethels (UK: Edward Elger Publishing, 2018): 143-157. 

“Lord, Let Me Be an Instrument: The Artistry and Cultural Politics of Reverend James Cleveland and the Gospel Music Workshop of America, 1963–1991," Journal of Africana Religions,Volume 5, Number 2, 2017 
pp. 157-180.

“A Conversation with Kevin Jerome Everson,” Callaloo, Vol. 37, No.  4, Fall 2014, 802-808.

“Rage Against the Machine: African American Music and the Evolution of the Penitentiary Blues, 1961-2000” in  Deborah McDowell, Claudrena Harold, and Juan Battle, eds., The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration  (University of Virginia Press, 2013).  

“Reconfiguring the Roots and Routes of New Negro Activism: The Garvey Movement in New Orleans,” in Davarian Baldwin and Minkah Makalini, eds., Escape From New York: Tne New Negro Renaissance Beyond Harlem (University of Minnesota Press, 2013).

“Almighty Fire: The Rise of Urban Contemporary Gospel Music and the Search for Cultural Authority in the 1980s.”  Fire!!!: The Multimedia Journal of Black Studies,  Vol. 1, No. 1 (Spring 2012), 25-48.

“Of the Wings of Atalanta: The Struggle for African American Studies at the University of Virginia, 1969-1995,” Journal of African American Studies, Vol 16, No. 1 (March 2012), 41-69.

Films

Hampton. (2019). With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16 mm film. Screened at Black Star Film Festival, True/False Film Festival, Oberhausen International Film Festival, and FestCurtas BH, Belo Horizonte Brazil . 

Black Bus Stop. (2019).  With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16mm film and digital. Screened at Virginia Film Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam (Ammodo Tiger Short Competition Nominee), Rotterdam; Cinema du Reel, Paris; Vienna Shorts Festival (Jury Prize), Austria; Filmadrid International Film Festival (Special Mention), Madrid, Melbourne International Film Festival, Madrid, Bafici Rosario, Rosario,  Hamburg International Film Festival, Hamburg;  European Media Arts Festival, Osnabruck; and Tiff Lightbox, Toronto. 

How Can I Ever Be Late. (2017) With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16mm, 6 minutes, color and black and white. Screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam; Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Princeton Garden Theatre; London Film Festival, London, England; Alternative Film and Video, Belgrade; BAM Cinemafest, Brooklyn, New York; Crossroads, San Francisco; Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, Virginia, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis, Tennessee, Fronteira Festival, Goiânia, Brazil, Curtas Vila do Conde, Vila do Conde, Portugal.   

70 Kg. (2017).  With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16 mm, 2 minutes, black and white. Screened at Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, Virginia; Media City Film Festival, Windsor, Canada. 

Fastest Man in the State. (2016). With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16 mm, 10 minutes, color and black and white. Screened at Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville, Virginia; Whitney Museum (2017 Biennial), New York, New York; Chicago International Film Festival, Chicago, Illinois, Images Festival, Toronto, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis, Tennessee.   

We Demand (2016). With Kevin Jerome Everson. 16 mm film, 10 minutes, color. Screened at Virginia Film Festival, Charlottesville; Alternative Film and Video Festival, Belgrade; Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), Berlin; Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, California; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis, Tennessee, Fronteira Festival, Goiânia, Brazil.

Sugarcoated Arsenic (2014). With Kevin Jerome Everson, 16 mm film, 20 minutes, black and white. Screened at Virginia Film Festival,  ; International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam; International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Oberhausen; Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh; Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York International Film Festival, New York City; Tate Modern, London, England; Festival du Nouveau Cinema,  Montreal; Vienna International Film Festival, Austria; Porto Post/Doc Film and Media Festival, Porta; Courtisane Festival, Ghent; Crossroads Festival,  San Francisco; Basilica Hudson, Hudson; Opacities Series, Edinburgh; Black Cinema House, Chicago; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Fronteira Festival, Goiânia, Brazil.   

U. of Virginia Charlottesville, VA 1976(2014)
. With Kevin Jerome Everson, 11 Min, digital. Screened at Unknown Pleasures, American Independent Film Festival, Berlin, Indie Memphis Film Festival, Memphis, Tennessee. 

Courses Taught

Introduction to African American and African Studies 
Black Fire: The Struggle for Social Justice and Racial Equality at the Univeristy of Virginia 
American Labor History 
From Motown to Hip-Hop: The Evolution of African American Music 
Black Power 
The Sounds of Blackness