Erec Smith: Anti-Racism and Free Black Thought

ACTA’s Paul and Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom, Steven McGuire, sits down in a far-reaching conversation with Erec Smith, cofounder and coeditor of Free Black Thought, a small group of citizens, scholars, technologists, and parents determined to amplify vital Black voices that are rarely heard on mainstream platforms. Smith is the Associate Professor of Rhetoric at York College of Pennsylvania, and is the author of A Critique of Anti-Racism in Rhetoric and Composition: The Semblance of Empowerment. By its own description, the Free Black Thought organization “has no political agenda other than a commitment to free speech, civil rights, and a conviction that a pluralistic society committed to liberal democracy is nourished by the entire spectrum of Black thinking on matters of politics, society, and culture.”