Langston Hughes and the Dream Behind the Dream
How Hughes's poetry became the hidden scaffolding of King's "I Have a Dream" speech
The discovery of the earliest known recording of the dream refrain — nine months before the March on Washington
Why King had to conceal his debt to Hughes, and how that shaped American memory of both men
Inside the PBS documentary Origin of the Dream and what the Rocky Mount tape revealed
Nina Simone, Black Power, and the Poet Behind the Priestess
How Hughes shaped four of Simone's most pivotal recordings, including "Backlash Blues"
Why the phrase "Black Power" traces back to collaborative lyrics by Hughes and Simone
Simone's 1965 Selma to Montgomery performance and how Hughes made her a movement icon
The Harlem Renaissance reaching forward into the Black Arts Movement — one friendship at a time
Being A Cultural Detective: Uncovering Hidden History
How to find what the archive doesn't want you to find
The Rocky Mount tape: cracked reel, rusted box, pencil note reading "Please do not erase"
Unearthing 150 undeveloped photographs and 81 seconds of color footage from a forgotten day in civil rights history
What the letters and personal papers of Hughes and Simone revealed that no published source had captured
When History Gets Erased: Race, Memory, and the Stories We Don't Tell
The day MLK spoke to 5,000 people at NC State while 1,800 Klan members marched two miles away — undocumented by either side
How the press, institutions, and popular memory conspire to bury inconvenient history
How Langston Hughes used poetry as witness testimony when journalism wouldn't cover lynching
What erased history tells us about the present — and who benefits from the silence
The Art of Narrative History & Public Scholarship
Translating decades of archival work into books, documentaries, and digital experiences that reach general audiences
The unexpected media life of an academic discovery: from the Smithsonian podcast to the Rachel Maddow Show
Building digital humanities projects as extensions of scholarly argument
Why public scholars matter more than ever, and how to become one
Where ...
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Keynote Presentations
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Workshops & Lectures
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Artistic Collaboration Sessions
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Universities, Civil Rights Organizations, MLK Day and Black History Month Events
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Documentary Screenings & Director Q&As
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Public Scholarship & Narrative History Seminars
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Writers' conferences, libraries, book festivals
You may have already seen and heard Jason on TV, podcasts, or other during other radio interviews. He has appeared on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and the ABC and CBS National Evening News.
Having delivered over 196 public talks, his event appearances include the North Carolina Museum of Art, Brown University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dorothea Dix Park, and the Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C.
Jason has also served as a Keynote speaker in such places as Newport, RI, Yale University, Duke University, Rocky Mount, NC, and NC State University.
With his engaged research on Martin Luther King Jr., Langston Hughes, and Nina Simone even inspiring original artwork and symphonies, Jason speaks at galleries and concerts.