Many people—from journalists on cable news to President-elect Joe Biden—repeatedly described last Wednesday’s insurrection at the Capitol as “unprecedented.” But, in reality, it does represent who we are and who we’ve always been. Throughout U.S. history, there’s been a long legacy of white violence echoing last week’s attack at the Capitol. So while witnessing the insurrection may have been shocking, this event also has precedent—whether we’re talking about the days of the Civil War and Reconstruction or the Jim Crow South and segregation.

Professor Daina Ramey Berry discussed her course, Lives of the Enslaved, with former students, Keina Cook, and Michael Bennett. Professor Berry will lead Lives of the Enslaved during the spring semester of the Pace–Gilder Lehrman MA in American History Program.

Labor Day: A Conversation About Democracy, Freedom, and Longing
As we weigh the value of our life, how important is the work that we do? How much are we compelled to give ourselves over to others for profit and how much pride do we take in what we accomplish?

Among the giants of American history, Sojourner Truth stands out. After escaping slavery, she drew huge crowds as a speaker, advocating on behalf of abolition and women’s rights. Host Kim Azzarelli and American historian Dr. Daina Ramey Berry celebrate the voice and work of Sojourner Truth.

Economics has not been immune to the ongoing and long overdue reckoning with American racial injustice. Many students and scholars think the conceptual approaches of economics and empirical practices implicitly marginalize or discount Black and Latinx perspectives. To listen or read a transcript of the panel click here

Maria and Julio are joined by authors and historians Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross to talk about their latest book, A Black Women's History of the United States. They analyze the history of Black women in America and their legacy of activism, resistance and entrepreneurship. Daina and Kali offer their insight on how Black women are shaping politics and harnessing their electoral power. Listen to the podcast

On June 19, 1865, slaves in Texas finally learned they were free. Juneteenth, a commemoration of that moment 155 years ago, has been called America’s second Independence Day. And today it’s drawing more attention as the nation continues to grapple with systemic racism. Listen to this podcast

After 155 years, Juneteenth, a celebration of the emancipation of enslaved Americans, is being acknowledged as a holiday by corporations and state governments across the country. Today, we consider why, throughout its history, Juneteenth has gained prominence at moments of pain in the struggle for black liberation in America. We also ask: What does freedom mean now? Listen to the podcast

Photo credit: Eli Reed/Magnum Photos

When President Trump initially planned a rally in Tulsa, Okla., on June 19, some Americans were outraged. NPR's Noel King speaks with two historians about the significance of that day and city. Listen and/or read the transcript of this interview.

American historian Daina Ramey Berry sits down with MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez to discuss the history of Tulsa’s 'Black Wall Street', and why so many black Americans were offended by the suggestion that President Trump would hold a campaign rally in that city on Juneteenth. Watch the interview video.

Listen here to Drs. Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross talk about their recent book, A Black Women's History of the United States. Follow up with this accompanying article.

To mark 400 years since the arrival of African slaves in America, Daina Ramey Berry reflects on Isaac, who led a rebellion and whose life ended in a final act of defiance.

Historian Daina Ramey Berry describes the sale of an infant named Rachel to explore how enslaved people were commodified.

Click here or here to listen to Dr. Daina Ramey Berry discuss the legacy of Juneteenth. She explores the significance of the holiday and its various traditions which continue today.

Listen here as Dr. Daina Ramey Berry discusses the history of reparations in this timely and poignant dialogue.

Listen and/or read the transcript of this brief conversation regarding the delayed printing of the $20 bill in the United States.

Author Daina Ramey Berry talks about her book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation. This interview was recorded at the Organization of American Historians annual meeting in Philadelphia.

In this last episode for Black History Month 2019, Cite Black Women founder Christen Smith interviews historian Daina Ramey Berry, the author of five books on gender and slavery in the United States. In this conversation we talk about the powerful and reflective work of writing about our collective past, the relationship between the commodification of Black women during slavery and the politics of citational erasure and the importance of reading our history and mentoring for Black women.

Click here to download this podcast conversation between Drs. Peniel Joseph and Daina Ramey Berry.

Watch as Dr. Berry talks about the soul value of American slavery at Lone Star College-Kingwood.

Listen here as Hopeton Hay interviews Dr. Daina Ramey Berry about her latest book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Celebrating Juneteenth: The History Behind The Holiday

Listen to this episode of On Point as Jane Clayson and various guests, including Dr. Berry, discuss the significance of Juneteenth.

If you missed Dr. Berry's contributions to the CWR Network's virtual town hall on June 19, 2018, check out the full conversation here.

Robin on #MeToo versus the Nobel Prize, poetry month, and women's long-term strategies in Rwanda and the Gaza Strip. Guests: Daina Ramey Berry on what enslaved persons thought—and cost; Taina Bien-Aimé on anti-sex-traffick progress. Plus a surprise!

On this week's podcast Professor Berry and Chauncey discuss how the monetary value of black enslaved people in America was determined from the cradle to the grave, the selling of black people's bodies (both alive and dead) to medical schools, the barbaric practice known as "womb insurance," the saga of Nat Turner's skull, the many ways that black human property fought back and resisted their dehumanization by white society, and how chattel slavery ultimately built American empire.

If you missed Dr. Berry's talk at the Charles H. Wright Museum on March 13, 2018, watch the recording here.

Interview

Interviewer: John L. Hanson, Jr.

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. speaks with Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, associate professor of history and African and African diaspora studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and author of The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

If you missed Dr. Berry's riveting talk at UVA during the symposium on slavery, catch the C-SPAN recording which aired December 30, 2017.

Curious to know upcoming history trends for 2018? Read this article to learn what Dr. Berry and other historians, experts, and thought leaders are predicting for the new year.

Interview

Interviewer: Donnell Edwards

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Listen as Dr. Berry discusses slavery in America, linkages with the present, and her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

AHA Member Spotlight

Read the following interview by Matthew Keough as Dr. Daina Ramey Berry, a member of the American Historical Association since 1996, reveals a fascinating career shift during undergrad, her rationale for residing in Austin, and a one-of-kind archival find sure to surprise.

At the ground-breaking symposium "Universities, Slavery, Public Memory and the Built Landscape" hosted by the University of Virginia, Dr. Daina Ramey Berry delivered a thought-provoking keynote about the domestic cadaver trade, slavery, and the role of universities. To learn more about her talk, check out the following article.

Interview

Interviewer: Bernice Bennett

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Listen to this September 28, 2017 interview as Dr. Berry talks about The Price for Their Pound of Flesh. Learn more about how a decade of research culminated in this must-read monograph.

Establishing History: The Black Diaspora Archive and the Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project

For the last few years, Dr. Berry and Rachel Winston, the LLILAS Benson Black Diaspora Archivist, have been collaborating on the Texas Domestic Slave Trade Project (TXDST). With the help of a research team, the project has evolved and grown, elucidating the centrality of Texas in the domestic slave trade. Read Rachel Winston's reflections on her role on the project and its larger significance here...

Watch or read as Dr. Berry talks with CNN host John Berman about the necessity of understanding history in the debate regarding Confederate statues. This interview was aired live on August 17, 2017.

Watch Dr. Berry's June 29, 2017 talk in the Our Path Forward series as she discusses her book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Daina Ramey Berry gives a lecture entitled "The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave." From the moment of birth and before, those invested in buying and selling human beings put a price tag on enslaved people. This fiscal marker served as a projection of future worth as well as a monetary value of a market price. Regardless of what the figure meant, enslaved people created their own system of valuation that neither the auctioneer nor enslaver could control. Read more...

Interview

Interviewer: John Shuck

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Talking about her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, listen as Dr. Berry addresses questions related to slavery, race, and American history. Check out the program here.

Nat Turner's Legacy

Watch Dr. Berry and others in this brief clip that aired May 15, 2017 as they discuss the contemporary relevance of Nat Turner's rebellion. Learn more about the aftermath of the rebellion in Dr. Berry's book,The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Book Talk

Read the following article about Dr. Berry's return to her hometown of Davis, California for a book talk on The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Trump and Nixon, Parent Confidence, Slavery and Human Value

Interviewer: Julie Rose

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Aired live on May 10, 2017, Dr. Berry joins a fascinating lineup of scholars addressing pressing topics in American society. Listen as she talks about her new book and how enslaved people defined their own worth even when the institution of slavery commoditized their very being.

Interview

Interviewer: James Stancil

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Read about and listen to Dr. Berry talk about her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Episode 52

Interviewer: Byron Williams

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Follow this link and scroll down to number 51 (episode 52) to hear Dr. Berry read an excerpt from The Price for Their Pound of Flesh and discuss the book in more detail.

UT News

UT Austin Professor of History and Black Studies, Daina Ramey Berry, tackles a very difficult subject in her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved from Womb to Grave, in the Building of A Nation. In the book, Dr. Berry attempts to answer two main questions: “What is a human life worth?” and “How do you define a person’s value?”

Interview

Interviewer: Darryl Robertson

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Dr. Daina Ramey Berry spoke with VIBE to talk about The Price for Their Pound of Flesh. In the interview she expounds upon the various values elucidated in the text, the role of age in negotiations of value, and further research areas she'd like to study.

Trump is right. Slavery ‘is not good.’ This new book can show him how horrific it was.

Interviewer: Jonathan Capehart

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

In response to President Donald Trump's comments during his tour of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Dr. Berry addresses the nation's troubling history with slavery. Her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, explores the realities of the peculiar institution through the experiences of the enslaved. Listen to the discussion here.

The Value of Slaves

Listen to this engaging dialogue as Daina Ramey Berry discusses both how enslavers maximized their profits and how the enslaved responded to their commodification. Inspired by her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, this conversation explores how money values could never capture the very human experiences of the enslaved.

Daina Ramey Berry's new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh made it onto Keisha N. Blain's list for must-read slavery scholarship in 2017. Works by Erica Armstrong Dunbar, Marisa J. Fuentes and Deborah Gray White, Tera W. Hunter, Matthew Karp, Sowande M. Mustakeem, and Nikki M. Taylor round out the list.

Daina Ramey Berry and Ray Winbush led a panel on the complex history of slavery in the United States at Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse on Saturday, Feb. 25th. The discussion revolved around providing reparations for slavery, which involves making amends for the abuses that enslaved people faced in the past. Read more about the event here.

Writing on the Air

Listen as Daina Ramey Berry sits down with KOOP to talk about her new book, The Price for their Pound of Flesh.

Your Rights At Work

Hosts: Chris Garlock and Ed Smith

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Aired February 16, 2017, Dr. Berry describes how she came to study her current interests and talks about her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

For Historian, the Value of the Enslaved Encompassed More Than Price

Interviewer: Jennifer Stayton

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Streamed on January 26, 2017 just two days after The Price for Their Pound of Flesh hit shelves, this illuminating Morning Edition interview forcefully argues for the inclusion of soul value into the enslaved experience during the nineteenth century.

Watch one of the first public talks Dr. Daina Ramey Berry gave after The Price for Their Pound of Flesh was released in January. In this thought-provoking interview Dr. Jennifer Morgan asks Dr. Berry some challenging questions about her new work, situates the text in a broadly scholarly context, and opens the floor to engaging discussion.

The Legacy of Slavery and The Value of Black Life in America

Interviewer: Jon Hockenberry

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

Listen to this insightful interview as Dr. Berry explains the contemporary ramifications of slavery through the framework of her new book, The Price for Their Pound of Flesh.

Just a day before her new book was released, Dr. Berry delivered a moving keynote address at the American Library Association Midwinter Meeting. Honoring the legacies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Berry described the indelible soul value of Mingo, one of the numerous enslaved individuals a reader meets in her new publication. Read more about the event here.

Pushing the boundaries of public history, digital technology, archival research, and anthropological methodologies, Dr. Berry's recent project, Mapping the Texas Slave Trade Routes received a major grant from the University of Texas at Austin's Humanities Media Project. Read an update to see the results of the grant here.

Listen to this fascinating podcast examining enduring love among African American couples.
Read more in this Washington Post article.

Scholars talked about the historical significance of the decision to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the front of the twenty dollar bill, as well as the reactions to the announcement. On April 20, 2016, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced that abolitionist Harriet Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson on the front of the twenty dollar bill. The Treasury Department planned to unveil the final concept design in 2020.
This event was part of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History annual meeting and conference.

With colleague Minkah Makalani, Dr. Berry explains the value of Black Studies to contemporary American society. The skills gained, including critical thinking, constructive problem-solving, and political engagement are crucially necessary to the country's current climate. Published just days before UT hosted Black Matters, a one-of-a-kind Black Studies conference, this Huffington Post article sheds light on timely social issues.

Historian Daina Ramey Berry on Keeping 'Roots' Accurate and Finding Strength in Studying Slavery

Interviewer: Jennifer Stayton

Guest: Daina Ramey Berry

In 2016 the remake of Roots has generated a lot of buzz and Hollywood has noticed. The mini-series was nominated for seven Emmys and, in this interview, Dr. Berry talks about the importance of producing work with historical integrity for public audiences.
Listen to the interview here and read the accompanying article here.

Aisha Tyler's journey reveals an ancestor who, as a politician, struggled to keep his illegitimate son a secret. Catch a glimpse of the story here.

What does it mean to be a public historian? Read this article to find out how Dr. Berry balances her commitments to academic rigor, public scholarship, and guided mentorship. A frequent guest on various popular platforms, Dr. Berry aims for her research to reach a broad audience--but such ambitions present their own unique set of challenges.

Alfre Woodard, a well-known actress, television personality, and political activist tackles her family's past in this episode of the hit show, Who Do You Think You Are? Join Dr. Berry and Woodard as they piece together a compelling narrative of her paternal grandfather’s family. Catch a brief synopsis of the story here.

Catch a brief glimpse of Drs. Daina Ramey Berry, Eric Walther, and Allyson Hobbs as they discuss the legacy of the American Civil War after 150 years with Tavis Smiley. Read more here.

Episode 54: Urban Slavery in the Antebellum United States

Host:
Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History

Guests:
Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor, Department of History
Leslie Harris, Department of History, Emory University

Episode 42: The Senses of Slavery

Host:
Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History

Guest:
Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor, Department of History

Written and presented by Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., this six-part series is the first documentary film to air since 1968 to chronicle the full sweep of African-American history, from the origins of slavery on the African continent through more than four centuries of remarkable historic events up to 2013, when the series aired. It addresses the obstacles people of African descent in the United States have undergone to forge freedom, highlighting the complex lives of myriad individuals over five centuries. Dr. Berry appears in the episode entitled The Age of Slavery (1800-1860).

The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of American Library Association has named Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia (Greenwood Press, 2012), co-edited by Profs. Daina Ramey Berry and Deleso A. Alford, to the 2013 Outstanding Reference Sources List.

Enslaved Women in America: An Encyclopedia "provides an authoritative account of the daily lives of enslaved women in the United States, from colonial times to emancipation following the Civil War. Through essays, photos, and primary source documents, the female experience is explored, and women are depicted as central, rather than marginal, figures in history."

Host:
Joan Neuberger, Editor, Not Even Past and Professor, Department of History

Guests:
Daina Ramey Berry, Associate Professor, Department of History

American slavery was a dynamic institution. And though slavery was mainly a system of labor, those who toiled in the fields and catered to the most private needs and desires of enslavers were more than just workers. Although utterly obvious, it must be reiterated that the enslaved were indeed people. Dr. Berry address the humanity of the enslaved in this interview and accompanying article about her book, Swing the Sickle.

Spike Lee is one of America’s best known film directors. He has done more than anyone in his generation to bring African-American history and experience to the screen. The name of his production company, 40 Acres and a Mule, refers to the broken promise made by the federal government to provide ex-slaves with land and a mule. In this episode, Dr. Berry examines Lee's past to uncover more about his mother's slave ancestry. Through this journey he discovers more about his slave roots and the people who owned his ancestors. Read more about Lee's findings here.