Conference Call For Papers

The 2025 Annual Black Studies Conference, University of Missouri

Navigating Anti-Black Racism and Nativism: Black Immigrants and the Right to the Nation 

Immigration history is vibrantly attuned to race and ethnicity. Scholars have given in depth attention to the myriad ways in which race and ethnicity have shaped both migrant experiences and immigration policy. And yet, within this rich field, Black immigrants are nearly absent. Black immigrants are largely left out of popular understandings of the American immigrant experience. As scholar Violet Showers points out, “the foreign-born of African descent have always been at the periphery of American immigration historiography.”[1] This lacuna distorts our understanding of the immigrant past; under closer examination, Black migration was an integral part of the construction of the United States.

The vivid experiences of voluntary and forced migrants from Africa and its diaspora are inexplicably considered beyond the purview of immigration history as a field. This exclusion denies us a full understanding of not only Black immigrant experiences, but also of the ways in which anti-Black racism has shaped nativism, xenophobia, and immigrant restriction. This conference seeks to examine the long history of Black immigration to the U.S. beginning in 1619 and throughout the African diaspora, as well as Black experiences of nativism, exclusion, controlled mobility, and precarious citizenship.

Central to the argument this conference seeks to make is that nativism has attempted to disrupt and criminalize Black immigration. Using historian Llana Barber’s definition of nativism as the “systemic privileging of the native born over foreigners or those rendered foreign,” this conference will attempt to uncover the ways that restrictive and punitive anti-immigration laws and rhetoric were shaped by anti-Black racism.[2] Indeed, since the colonial period through the early twenty-first century, anti-immigration policy and rhetoric have been centered around controlling and disciplining Black mobility. Exploring the intersections of anti-Black racism and nativism allows us to better understand both systems. As Kunal Parker has demonstrated, nativism is not simply about the treatment of actual foreigners, but also about how those born in the United States are legally and discursively rendered foreign. Given that understanding, this conference will combine attention to Black immigration with Black American experiences with nativism.

The issue of immigration and the right to reside in the United States have long been racialized. The past decade has seen a resurgence of exclusionary rhetoric rooted in anti-Black racism and the criminalization of individuals of color from Central and South America. There are increasing fears that the immigration of people of color may soon alter the white majority in the U.S. Against this backdrop, the conference proposes to take a transnational perspective, investigating how anti-Black racism—broadly defined—and nativism affect immigration from Africa and the African diaspora. Key questions include: How do Black African and diaspora immigrants experience anti-Black racism in the U.S. and other countries? How do they navigate issues of race and identity compared to Black and white Americans as well as other immigrant and “native” groups? In what ways have these communities fought against nativist sentiments for the right to live, work, and inhabit public spaces? How do state institutions influence Black immigrant communities, and how do these institutions shape politics within those communities? How are ideas of citizenship and belonging informed by anti-Black immigration policies? How do Black immigrants perceive their roles within the U.S. and other host countries’ social justice movements? Additionally, how have anti-Black racism and reactionary nativist rhetoric influenced immigration laws, policing, incarceration, and foreign policy? What impact has imperialism had on Black immigration to and from countries? Overall, this conference will address how Black immigrant communities have navigated stringent immigration policies influenced by anti-Black racism and nativism, advocated for their right to the city, and organized alongside domestic social justice movements.

Please submit a title and an abstract between 250-300 words explaining your topic and the format of your presentation. Include the names and contact information of all participants. Titles and abstracts are due March 31, 2025, and should be emailed to blackstudies@missouri.edu. Responses will be sent by May 31, 2025.

We can offer limited scholarship funding of $500 each to six outstanding graduate students for travel or accommodation expenses.

When: October 15 - 16, 2025

Where: University of Missouri, Columbia

Organized by the Department of Black Studies, University of Missouri

[1]  Violet Showers Johnson, “The Black Presence in US Immigration History,” A Nation of Immigrants Reconsidered: US Society in an Age of Restriction, 1924-1965, eds, Maddalena Marinari, Madeline Y. Hsu, and Maria Cristina Garcia (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2019), 273, 275, quoted in Barber, “Anti-Black Racism,” 7.

[2] Llana Barber, “Anti-Black Racism and the Nativist State,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Summer 2023, vol 42 no 4: 6.