This lecture will focus on the intersection of race, nuclear weapons, and colonialism. Beginning with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Vincent Intondi will explore the response of Black leaders and organizations, and of the broader African American public, to the evolving nuclear arms race and general nuclear threat throughout the postwar period. From the Civil Rights Movement to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Black leaders and the Global South have often been at the forefront of the struggle to eliminate nuclear weapons. Intondi will shed light on this history showing that people throughout the African diaspora never gave the nuclear issue up or failed to see its importance, and by doing so, broadened how the world viewed nuclear disarmament and helped define it in terms of global human rights.

Vincent Intondi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Webster University-Leiden. He is the author of two books: African Americans Against the Bomb: Nuclear Weapons, Colonialism, and the Black Freedom Movement (Stanford University Press, 2015) and Saving the World from Nuclear War: The June 12, 1982, Disarmament Rally and Beyond (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023). An expert on the intersection of race and nuclear weapons, Intondi regularly works with organizations exploring ways to include more diverse voices in the nuclear disarmament movement. His current research and next book focus on the role of Africa in the nuclear disarmament movement.

This lecture is part of the conference "Global Legacies of Anti-Nuclear Activism: Intersectional Perspectives," which the Capps Center is proud to co-sponsor.

In partnership with NYU Abu Dhabi and co-sponsored by: Nature, Ethics, and Technology Program; Walter H. Capps Center; Institute for Humanities and Social Change; Global Latinidades Center; Erickson Endowed Chair; UCSB Human Rights Board; Student Commission on Racial Equity; UCSB Environmental Justice Alliance; Dept. of Religious Studies; Dept. of Environmental Studies; Center for Women, Gender, and Sexual Equity; Carsey-Wolf Center; Dept. of History; Dept. of Feminist Studies; Dept. of Global Studies; Santa Barbara Women’s Commission; International Uranium Film Festival.