CHAP Brings "The FBI’s War on Black Marriage" to PC Theater on September 21
The Porterville College Cultural Historical Awareness Program (CHAP) invites students, faculty, staff, and community members to an important upcoming lecture that has been rescheduled for later this month. Originally slated for September 15, the presentation by acclaimed scholar Dr. Traci Lynnea Parker-Lewis will now take place on Monday, September 21, 2026, at 7:00 PM in the PC Theater. The adjustment comes as a result of an unforeseen scheduling conflict.
In this timely and insightful talk, titled "The FBI's War on Black Marriage," Dr. Parker-Lewis will delve into the covert ways federal surveillance targeted intimate personal relationships throughout the mid-twentieth-century Black Freedom Movement. Her presentation uncovers the intentional efforts of state agencies to manufacture distrust, fracture marriages, and destabilize the emotional foundations that sustained civil rights leaders and their broader communities. Please be advised that the presentation includes discussions surrounding sex, infidelity, and the federal government's weaponization of sexual allegations and surveillance against Black activists.
Dr. Parker-Lewis is an Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Davis, whose research has significantly deepened our understanding of civil rights history and social change. She is the author of Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s (UNC Press, 2019) and co-editor of The New Civil Rights Movement Reader: Resistance, Resilience, and Justice (UMass Press, 2023). Her scholarship continues to highlight the vital intersections of personal life and activism in forthcoming books, including Revolutionary Love (Bloomsbury Publishing), a new biography of Coretta Scott King, a co-edited volume on American marriage, and I Was Called: The Activist Life of Coretta Scott King, which will be published by Yale University Press in April 2027 to mark Scott King’s centennial.
Mark your calendars and join us in the PC Theater on Monday, September 21, at 7:00 PM for what promises to be an engaging and thought-provoking evening. To learn more about this presentation and explore the full lineup of upcoming events through the CHAP program, visit the official CHAP website at https://www.portervillecollege.edu/about-pc/chap/index.html or reach out directly to CHAP Coordinator Leslie Keele at leslie.keele@portervillecollege.edu.
