What About Your Friends?: Black Feminism & Informal Networks feat Sharon Harley Artwork

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Deep dives about the major themes found in SMART GIRL: A FIRST-GEN ORIGIN STORY feat. Samantha Pinto and the author, La'Tonya Rease Miles.

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Smart Girl

What About Your Friends?: Black Feminism & Informal Networks feat Sharon Harley

November 07, 2025 • La'Tonya Rease Miles • Season 1 • Episode 8

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We trace how Black feminist networks form, sustain, and transform lives, from a painful academic slight to a thriving community rooted in mentorship, writing, and everyday care. Prof. Sharon Harley (University of Maryland) joins us to unpack bias, honor invisible labor, and share a living philosophy of mentoring across generations.

• black feminist networks as infrastructure for survival and joy
• the hidden curriculum and practical mentoring that meets basic needs
• bias in the academy and how community counters it
• allies within and beyond Black studies strengthening the web
• writing as resistance, archive, and liberation
• re-centering women builders like Nannie Helen Burroughs
• soundtracks that score struggle, study, and celebration

Sam: 0:03

Hi, y'all. We are back. Uh we have uh our episode that as uh LT was just talking about, in many ways spearheaded this entire podcast and is why we wanted to do it. Um we're calling it What About Your Friends, Black Feminism and Informal Networks. And um, one of the things for those that have read or listened to Smart Girl, um, is that there are networks of family of friends and of colleagues in Smart Girl mentors, too, I should add, who exemplify, but in really non-traditional ways, usually how to build a Black feminist network. So Black feminist networks are huge for LT in the book, but also um how to build networks with a black feminist perspective and ethics that really I think informs everything that um that LT has done and built uh uh from this moment. Um and there is one incident, uh, and there's a chapter that really captures this uh so fully, especially in the academic realm. Uh, and we are so excited here today to have, you know, what LT just referred to to Dr. Sharon Harley as a national treasure. Uh, and she will introduce Dr. Harley, but to have Dr. Harley joining us today, who was part of this chapter about Black feminist networks and their significance to um to LT and to so many first-gen Black women students.

LT: 1:57

But we're gonna keep giving Dr. Harley her flowers before we let her speak. So let me set this up a little bit more, Sam. You know, there's a moment in the book when I was still a student at Howard University and I was in the McNair Scholars program, and my director had asked me, had asked all of us to list all of the folks we knew with a PhD. And I remember thinking, what? Like, how am I and that that person couldn't be like someone whose class you had taken. And I was like, how am I supposed to meet someone with a PhD? And then I transferred and went to uh to uh to University of Maryland and started before I became a student there, I was working at the University of Maryland in the Afro-American Studies program at that time and had the opportunity to see and meet so many faculty, particularly Black women faculty. And one of them, of course, was Dr. Sharon Harley, who just literally changed my life in so many, in so many different ways. One of those ways was when I had chosen my major as as English, so excited, I'm gonna be a Shakespeare scholar. And won won this uh won this essay contest, uh um, and got and gone to this professor white faculty member and said, Oh, I want to go to graduate school and you know do this work. And he said to me, Oh, well, you won because the the the contest wasn't as good this year. So uh I was I was working for Dr. Harley, who was chair of Afro-American Studies at that time. Well, actually, I had not told her, did not tell you, Dr. Harley. I was like, I'm not telling anybody this, but you did you did hear from another Black female scholar, Dr. Nicole King. Um, so as a way of first of all, thank you for coming um to being on the on the podcast today. Um, would love to hear, not you know, we don't need the details or anything, but just what's your reaction when you hear something like that, especially given all of the work that you have done personally, professionally. What do you what's what's your reaction when you hear that?

Sharon Harley: 4:15

Well, I guess uh I wanted to say that unfortunately it's not just a graduate or undergraduate student who hears these uh unfortunate and uh biased remarks, it's also uh faculty members and uh who would hear this from colleagues. And oftentimes, and in the your case, in the case in which I was victim biased by such uh negative comments, the scholar who said it, and I'm putting, I'm not gonna put it in quotes, but was not a first-rate scholar. And I think it often reflects people's own insecurities and shortcomings and biases. So it was devastating, but I was happy that I was already, had already organized a network of, and it wasn't just black women, predominantly black women at the University of Maryland, and was fortunate to get a Ford Foundation grant to have a seminar on black women and work. It was just amazing. And and we the delivery in this network paid our uh scholar participants, you know, a whopping $2,500. But it didn't matter what the amount was that we wanted to recognize if we're studying work, that women of color, women in particular, often done work for which there was no renumeration, and we wanted to pay and acknowledge their importance, the quality of their work. So we paid you know $2,500, I think probably for the year. We were happy to allgether. But uh that was one of the first networks, but there were others because I had gone to uh Howard and um did this first book called the first scholarly text volume on black women's history, and as you know, considered a kind of a pioneer in the field of black women's history, with my colleague from Morgan, Rosalind Trevor Penn. Oh my god. So I mean, I think it's critical. Maybe some people can survive going it alone, but I think particularly for women, for uh women of color, these networks are critical, and it involves pulling it together not only black women but allies. And so historically, I've had a lot of allies in our women's studies department and helped to recruit people who were both in gender women's studies and in African and African American studies. So um, you know, we have been able to uh mentor each other and mentor students with that network in place.

LT: 7:04

And I as a I was still an undergraduate student, so I got to see that before I went to my own PhD program outside of the classroom. I never took a class with you, you know. I I was a TA for you, so I got to witness it that way. But just being in the office, seeing you, Marcia Darling, Rhonda Williams, like so many people in very informal settings. Dr. Harley, I even remember setting up the like you had some folks come over to your house one time, and I was helping you set up the table before they came, and that just had such a positive impression on me. I was like, oh, this is this is what it's like. This is not just about writing books, you know what I mean? Like getting a PhD. This is really about community. One more thing, Sam, before we get into the next question, though. Another story that's not in the book. I remember Dr. Harley, I got a C in a class one time, and I told you about it. And you said, Why did you accept that C? And I remember being like, Wait, did I accept a C grade? Like, I was just thinking, well, I just didn't know the material. And from that, you said you never, you said you never accept a C grade. And that just changed my whole trajectory. Trust me, I never got another C. I think that was the only C I ever see. I think probably from that point. But probably, I probably got straight A from that point. But there were just so many small moments that you and I had just, you know, I was literally sitting right outside your office as your administrative assistant. And you would just, you know, walk back and forth back, you know, when we were handwriting messages and things like before. I have some of them. I'm gonna drop them in the mail. Oh my god. Oh my God, please do, please do. Well, Sam, where what what else should we be thinking about here?

Sam: 9:09

Yeah, so I in many ways, this this was the answer. And this is, you know, we're loose with our questions because we want everybody to just chat, right? So you you you both just talked so beautifully about what networks that you sustain you uh and how they help sustain you through um uh living through predominantly white institutionality uh in the act in the academy, uh and otherwise. And I'm also thinking of uh in LT's book, how uh figures like Linina and your mom show up in the memoir as like cautionary tales with your family, uh LT, uh as people who did wrong things, right? Didn't finish their college degree or early. Yes, yes, not that they actually did anything wrong. Um, and how they as figures used their experiences and their resilience and their voices as those who didn't squarely fit into community notions of success uh to support you. Uh and so I'm thinking of how you have both uh Dr. Harley and LT moved moved in your careers um to create community in the academy and in Black Studies and Black Women's History for you, Dr. Harley, and first gen studies and academic admin and ed tech for you, LT. Um, I was wondering if both of you could talk about some of the networks you've created and authored and maybe talk about the challenges of making those opportunities for Black women and as Black feminists in the spaces that you've been in. Um so just LT, you just talking about being there while you're helping to set up a table for one of these meetings, right? And one of these moments, like it's they're so sustaining, but they also take a lot of work, uh, as Dr. Harley studies and as you know, uh you have learned. So, can you talk a little bit about the challenges um and processes of building these communities?

LT: 11:15

Dr. Harley, I definitely defer to you on that.

Sharon Harley: 11:19

Well, I I think they are essential. And even though, as I said, it may have meant that over the course of my academic career I've written one or two or three less books, I couldn't actually survive if I had not had a community. And one of the things that I recognize about myself at this point in my life is that I'm committed to collaboration, I'm committed to organization and to mentoring. So even uh early on when Rosa and I did this book, we invited our fellow graduate students to contribute essays. And then subsequently I joined Rosin and others in forming an association for black women historians, and that is still existing today because we need each other. But I'm glad you mentioned uh about outside of the academy, our family members, and I remember when I did the first timetables for African American history book signing at a really notable bookstore in in uh DuPont Circle. And uh bookstore owner said she was only gonna order 25 books because they were expensive and they might not sell. So, in my regular profile, I said I was not coming unless she ordered at least 100 books, and she reluctantly agreed. And of course, she sold 200 and apologized to me because our network community included those aunts, uncles, people in the neighborhood who value your work. And you know, look, they may not ever read the book, but they have it on their coffee table, and some of them cited. So we have networks of people that encourage us who may not have followed that path, uh may not even know what getting a PhD involves. In fact, I remember Evelyn Brooks Higginsbotham at Harvard, my good friend. And and my mother wondered why we were giving up our good social studies teaching job to get a PhD job. And at times we're so poor we didn't even have 25 cents between the two of us. We wondered ourselves why we gave up that good social studies teaching job. But you know, I think we are outside the academy, we're uh raised in many ways, and we experience community support, family support, and people are so proud of us. People, you know, at the grocery store. So these are these are, and I write predominantly about women and people who expand beyond our normal narrative of what constitutes an academic community, what is nurturing around. So everybody I've written about, even the numbers backer, they had a community and they were respected. And I like writing about people who want to build communities, but not going to compromise their values and their beliefs in order to do that. And what people don't often know. And I'm not sure if I shared this with you, and it's hard for my students to remember this or look at me and say that I had a a time in which I was in the Black Panther Party. Oh my god. I need pictures. Oh, I have them. Uh my parents were horrified. They sent me I looked like a, you know, a you know, a Georgetown um, you know, preppy. And that's how I looked when I went to the school in Indiana. When I came back, I had an Angela Davis style afro. My father wouldn't let me bring the papers on inside the house. They had to stay on the front porch. And so I, you know, I got to think about all these things to help frame me. But and in my article for the Deborah Grey White book, I I think it's also my belief in racial justice that uh partly comes from growing up, you know, Catholic with all the issues the Catholic Church may or may not have. But there was something about economic justice that has guided me as well, because I remember my mother was praying for somebody who had gotten put out of their house. And I said to my mother, Do you know that person? She said, No, I don't have to know them to pray for them. So, I mean, I experienced this, and I think even yesterday at a faculty meeting, a colleague said, You just have such a special spirit. So I'm gonna attribute that to my mother and to who I am, and a and in many ways a blessing. So networking has been critical for me. And I also assume I don't care if I have a student who's failing at the University of Maryland. My supposition is that person could get a PhD, and I'm gonna set the standards at that level, but I also think it's because African American studies departments, women's studies departments, are often like going to HBCU. We have high expectations, we believe in excellence, but we're gonna help you on that way. We're not gonna say single swim. And I often have to remind my white colleagues that not all uh white uh faculty students or themselves came from multi-generations of college graduates. I often ask, what about the Appalachian whites when they make comments? And then a colleague said, Well, people didn't know they were bleeding after your comments because you're smiling the whole time. Until they saw the blood on the floor. But you know, we look, let's be real. Uh, you know, it isn't just first generation people, people of color, poor working class whites, uh ethnic uh white communities. And I like to remind people that when they talked about, you know, there was an incident which they said everybody that came to University of Maryland had to come with their own laptop. And I said, oh, okay, well, look, is that gonna apply to the Appalachian whites? Because I'm concerned about my brothers and sisters in West Virginia. They weren't expecting that, they just thought I was gonna be worried about my brothers and sisters in DC. But look, let's be real. And uh, and so uh networking, I think, is critical. And that networking also includes outside of the African-American women communities because some of my biggest supporters have been people like Ira Berlin and other white scholars. I was madly in love with the work of Herbert Guttman and so many groups, but Tina Aptecker. So they're the community is large and they're allies, and um, I think networking is just essential, and I have my academic friends, but also it's been important to me to have non-academic friends, people I went to high school with and was in some social club with, and people think, you know, all the work I do, they're just so impressed. But look, I work like everybody else. And so it's not like you know, if I don't come and do what I need to do, I just love what I do, and so I think to be in the academy, you really is a lot of work, but you have to really love it and find a lane that works for you and writing about women's work and a labor activist, civil rights activists, and even numbers backers is the lane in which I write.

LT: 19:07

This is so funny, Dr. Harley. So, what people have said about me after they read the book is like, oh, I have a better insight into like who I am today. And I'm glad that people will hear this conversation because I was at such a formative stage of my life and trying to figure out what I was gonna do next. Um, and hearing, and I'm just going way back down memory lane, but I'm thinking of just all the sisterhood that I witnessed in so many different ways. So, um, of course, we were talking about sister sister scholars and the academics, but at that time, um I think Sheila had just joined the sorority. Has she just joined aka during that time? Oh no, no, no, no. She was a long, she had a long time.

Sharon Harley: 19:55

Well, yeah, she was in the apple chapter with Felicia Richard and others. That's right, that's right. She had just involved to law school.

LT: 20:02

She went to law school while I was there.

Sharon Harley: 20:03

That's right.

LT: 20:04

But I got to see because I had such a like a had not coming from a college growing background, I was like, what are these sororities for? Like that. But I got to see you and Sheila be involved, right? And but sister, so sisterhood in that way. But like you said, just seeing um everyday, like feminism in the everyday. So you don't know this. But then when I went on to UCLA for graduate school, which is where Sam and I met, I wanted to write about pimp. And I wanted to write about numbers runners. And I I am certain that I was attuned to that because of the work that you and others were doing. So there was just so much that I was very open to. So my first feminist piece, though, was about cheerleaders. So thank you for that. Um, because people didn't think of cheerleaders as feminist. And so I wanted to talk about, especially within black, um, um, black communities, the the march, the marching band, the in um the steppers and all that. I really wanted to situate them within um um a feminist context. And so for me, Sam, it was really just seeing like you know, I was witnessed, I was a witness to so much and like just hearing these names that we're talking about, Mary Frances Barry, Mindy Shachavere's, like so many amazing, amazing feminist scholars. I was just hanging out with, you know, on the on the every day.

Sharon Harley: 21:42

Yeah, you know, we have to ask different questions. I think. So we have to ask, I read a different narrative and asked different questions and provide a space to uh uncover the feminist life of you know, black housewives. And so there is there, because we often talk about how our moms had money, but my mother didn't work it. She always had money, and I'm not really sure how she had that money. Maybe she just shaved off a little bit here and there, but um, I we have to look for, we have to ask about it, and we have to tell her from the perspective of the people we're writing about. We are obligated to do that. It's not really about us. We're just putting pen to paper or I guess typing on the computer, but it is their story, and we have to tell it how they want it to be told, even though we're gonna be critical of you know some aspects.

Sam: 22:43

Uh, I love this, uh, as someone who's uh attempting to write a book about black ex-wives, and just like, let's talk about um you called them maybe treacherous even objects of war, right? It was a great word, right? Like, how do we think about these like bad objects, right? Like how does black women's history and building black feminist networks informally, formally, etc. in our institutions and outside of them mean that we, you know, that that that both of you have had to uh um tell stories differently, build networks differently, and think of different lineages, right? Other than the ones that are given, right? Um, and so now I'm gonna ask you both to get um for for sound bites as two legends, right? Um to to tell, I want to hear the philosophy of mentoring. I'm hearing it in everything you're saying. Um, you're you're showing it, and in some ways now I'm asking you to tell me, but feel free to show instead of tell as well. Um if you could, you know, maybe give us what you think of as a key moment of mentoring or your kind of philosophy of mentoring, and particularly I'm interested, and both of you have been working across generations and for a long time. What's changed about your mentoring and your community building over time? How do you see things differently now than when you were both coming up? So we're getting these formative moments, and I'm sort of interested in how you've seen that change over time since I'm always fascinated by how we change as feminists, right? And how you your philosophy of black feminist mentorship has changed uh across time.

Sharon Harley: 24:36

Well, I can go first, uh, just because I've been doing a little bit longer. You know, from me is you have to value the person that you're mentoring. You have to value I just think there's something beautiful about each and every person, and that I expect uh um excellence and dedication, but I'm not gonna leave the person hanging. I'm gonna make sure I am there, both from an intellectual and a personal vantage point, to make the mentoring work, because for me, there's too great of a distance if you just say, oh, just look and see how I do it. You have to live it, you have to affirm that they they can do it, they're worthy of doing it. And also, I also talk about some of my own challenges. Um, sometimes you have to um, in many ways, be critical of yourself, however that's defined, so that people could see that you're not a person who's not suffered in whatever kind of way, like being at the ice cream store and not having 25 cents between myself and this very distinguished Evelyn Brooks here on bottom. We had to get the 25 cents from her daughter, um, who was like in elementary school. So I I think it's to be human, to have high expectations, and and that's for me is critical for the mentoring. Uh I I don't know, I've been doing it so long, but and I still do it. I just because I have high expectations, but I'm also gonna make you uh guide you, help you, and do whatever I can. And students, you know, they see this. You don't they see how you dedicated, how hardworking you are, you make yourself available, and and there's no way around it. You just say, well, I see you next month, we can work on it, then you have to be available.

LT: 26:52

I mean, I'm a direct beneficiary of that when I was at such a crucial moment in my life as a student, as an undergraduate student that desperately wanted to go back to Howard University. You were the first person, Dr. Harl, that asked me like uh how are you gonna get your way back, right? Um, and why don't you work here? And you know, at that time, I didn't even know you very well because I had worked for Dr. Myers in that summer research program. And you it was like you created this window, and I didn't I didn't even know that one existed. And so it's not like it wasn't even about you giving me a scholarship. What you gave was probably even more valuable because I had like hope and that led to opportunity, which ultimately led to me being able to transfer, thanks to Carla Gary, um, specifically, right? So the one you know, from one black woman to another black woman, whereas other people were just like, Oh, that's too bad. I hope, I hope you graduate someday.

unknown: 28:05

Right.

LT: 28:06

You actually provided a pathway for me. And that's one so Sam, what's one thing I've noticed um for myself when I think about like a student named like Monique, for example, Ribero, who's become my daughter's godmother. Sometimes you have to mentor students in ways that are not formal, that are informal. And so there were times where that student literally slept on our couch because like you because it's very, very basic needs, very basic needs um that um will help with the academic part. But we're talking about students who are bright, brilliant, but don't have but literally don't have a place to stay or or or food to eat, and really addressing that. And I don't think our formal institutions um think about that right away. That often becomes women who see that, right? Um, so that's what I've noticed. The other thing I've noticed is how much things have not changed, man. So sadly. Just talking to a black female student yesterday, uh, doctoral student in STEM at UCSF, and just hearing about her imposter syndrome and and things like that. Um, unfortunately, not that different than what I experience, or what you sounds like what you also experienced, Dr. Harley.

Sharon Harley: 29:33

There's a slight difference for some of the younger professors. I guess it depends on where they are. They have a lot more resources when they come into the academy. I know, Merlin. I just was talking to a colleague yesterday. They may give 20 or 30,000 startup. So we got not a dime. Wow, spin for yourself, so a lot of the um younger generation of black women scholars come with a different a moment of privilege and they come with more resources but it doesn't take long to experience what you described because i don't care how long how much money you have when you go to these places and the privileges you've had vis-a-vis older generational scholars the reality is gonna come and that reality is being a woman or being a person of color and so that and so I don't blame my younger sister scholars who come with these packages uh part of the reason why we worked so hard and built the foundation was because they didn't have to suffer the same kind of way they didn't have to spend time creating an association of black women historians or do but they have an obligation to help other people and it won't take long before they see the need to have these communities and they have communities but I think to provide emotional support and the like you think you can fend for yourself you know you have another thought coming and it's going to hit you hard when you have these same experiences because the academy hasn't totally changed. And so your experiences won't be totally different. But the fact of the matter is you can say no to many more things that we didn't say no to because we wanted to build African American studies departments and women's studies departments and and the like I I I'm impressed um by the interaction I had with my global scholars from West Africa and the like they um you know in many ways have a slightly different experience. I remember being at Bellagio and we were trying to figure out who was going to edit the book and so my scholar from kind of said what do you mean who's gonna edit the book? Is this your grant? Did you do all the work and get us all here so we're not invite look let's move on and so she helped me to also redefine my notion of work because you know everybody oh not everybody most people most women in West Africa were expected to work it wasn't kind of an either or so I began to redefine what I what work meant and the significance of work and that's reflected in um you know some of my published articles and the like so I think networking I still need the networks I don't yeah so I don't think that really uh disappears it's just you need them in a different kind of way and I think this a power in mentoring people to see that next generation I'm just so impressed with you in terms of what you did and you're you know it would be a shame in there how many other LTs are there and there are many more who are bright who are you know hardworking can get the books done when they were due and the like so um and it's it's um it's really interesting to hear both of you talk so much about um the invisible labor that I mean LT's book made visible right and that uh LT you've spent your career then trying to make visible and and try to also build institutional pathways so that the labor gets recognized and Dr.

Sam: 33:34

Harley you've done that as well and so that some of the labor gets put into the job right um rather than just be the informal networks and the invisible labor that women that folks of color that queer folks are doing both in the academy but we also know outside of it as well right uh uh with students um but uh in general right I see the way that LT outside of the academy now is still acting as a mentor for so many people uh uh and and that that valuing that labor making it visible building it in also thinking of it as a skill and part of your job as much as the next thing I really want to ask you both about um so Dr. Harley I know you just turned in some chapters for a new book uh and you're talking about LT's book um so I I want each of you to tell me more about writing about why you both feel called to write or what it means to you um as black women as black feminists as humans um tell tell me about writing and about why writing we've been talking so much about what's more than writing segue I I really want to know about your writing we'll you go first okay well here you know here's here's a bit of an update for you um Dr.

LT: 34:58

Harley so one of the things I've been very involved in lately is the Wikipedia community believe it or not I know I know that's a whole longer story I'll tell you offline but the very first article that I wrote was for Brianna Taylor and believe it or not so George Floyd had a page Brianna Taylor did not have her own page after years after her death right and for me um I first of all like why hasn't you go why hasn't someone else done this and you're like okay I'm gonna be the one to do it is really about documenting right and going back to what I was saying before these these experiences these lives that clearly other people have didn't think was important right black women in this case um and I have told people that is the most important thing I've ever written thousands and thousands of people well mil billions of people go to Wikipedia thousands of people have read that page not the killing of Breonna Taylor but about her life right um and it's something that's very accessible my family will not ever read my dissertation but they will go to Wikipedia and read that article right and so like when Sam when you ask about writing it really is trying to capture something or someone in the hopes that it gets passed down to someone it's not even about me right that this legacy is here. And I'm saying that her life is important right um that it should be there. So that's just one example but when I you know I've got another book so smart girls my memoir but yeah I've got another book coming out two books coming out very soon one on pop I was Dr. Helly trust me I was laughing you're like I've got three different projects I was like oh I know where I get that from so two other books coming out later this year um on black first generation college students and then another on um pop culture and mass media and again it's like just trying to capture archive dark document these things that other folks are not paying attention to and when you do that when you write them you're saying this is important. Last thing I'll say and I'll pass this over just about memoir so many of us say oh no not memoir not my life right I am not important and I tell folks especially in the traditional publishing industry it's dictating who we think is important. Only Prince Harry can write a memoir right and then it overlooks our our mothers or the numbers runner or or what have you and it becomes it's an industry it's a business that's already telling us who we think is important because it's written because it's in a book but we'd love to hear more about what writing means for you Dr.

Sharon Harley: 38:09

Harley well I think you know if you're in the academy you don't have you know a lot of choice and so part of the writing is because it is an obligation to be in the academy to remain in the academy and so on people say oh you you're still writing a book I'm like I'm still at a university and still number one expected to do it. But secondly probably more important I think for me writing is an act of resistance it's a radical act because we're telling the stories that you described of people whose lives haven't been told in this case I'm writing this a biography for Yale's Black Lives series on Nanny Helen Barrels. Now when people read about her the chapters I've written she's amazing how come I don't know more about her well because I mean because we want to write 50 books or 150 about the same two or three black male leaders and I remember asked me to come to talk about Martin Luther King well with the Martin Luther King Day but I talked about the women who he interacted with the women I don't think they're gonna invite me back but I talk about the women whose philosophy whose thinking who asked him to come and be a part of the movement in Montgomery he was just being a regular preacher in an important church. But they put him on the map but then they want you to come and talk about him. So I don't mind talking about him but I want to say let's have a conversation that took place with these other women so I think writing is an act of liberation it in the case of Nanny Hello Girls people say I don't really know much about her well because we don't continue to write about them so we have to continue to write about them and then one of the points I make in an article I wrote about her some years ago was when she died five or six thousand people came to her funeral and probably not 500 people know about her now. So we have to keep writing telling those stories and um I love writing it can be you know challenging but it's nothing like a writer or a scholar who gets that moment in which you can capture in words on page on the laptop what you're thinking about it. You have a breakthrough moment it's just wonderful uh to be in that space and to encourage our students to to do that kind of thing. I mean the editing is a different story and they got people to do that for you. I told myself I'm their editor they don't even have to pay me what I pay an editor I'm their editor they just have to do the research and I can help with editing and now with AI you know some of the editing jobs will disappear because they'll have you have subject and verb agreements. So writing is a powerful powerful uh way in which to engage and for me liberation a radical thinking radical engagement I think you're obligated to either tell new stories or tell stories that haven't been told but to capture the fullness and the richness of people that you write about and and it's there.

Sam: 41:41

I love that and I I love that you also talked Dr. Harley about the about self-fulfillment right and about how how it's really powerful that to you both spoke about how it's powerful for the good of the whole right to write uh um and communicate uh and be able to reach different audiences but also thinking about that moment where this is also the aha moment for you where your intellectual labor feels good right and that writing can give you that aha moment um because I I just never want to lose sight of that part of what both of you have you may have been at the library for eight hours before you get that moment over two days there's so much beyond that moment right but just thinking about what you give to other people when you're mentoring uh because you've talked so much both of you about what what you've given and created for other people and what other people have given to help you create but also that that's what you're trying to get students in whatever way whether the writing is your aha moment or or otherwise that we're trying to build so that so that you know that you both have built so that marginalized students and all of your students can get to their aha right and get to that point and figure out what it is that that gives them the light up uh and I just really I really love that um uh about both of your work um yeah real real quick Sam because this is a good up this is a great update and moment for Dr.

LT: 43:20

Harley as well to Sam knows this story. So Dr. Harley um Zoe was in college at um in Chicago she's she she's now transferred she's studying art by the way and she was taking a black feminist class and she called me up and said mom have you ever have you ever written anything on feminism I was like oh sure Zoe you know I've written this article I said why and she says oh because we have an assignment where we're supposed to um present on a black feminist scholar and so I want to present on you right and I thought wow what a great moment for her um for for her to say you know I'm not gonna present on someone else like my own mother my own mother is a black feminist scholar and I remember calling Sam and I'm thinking wow that was a mic drop but to see like the generations right so I'm definitely very proud of that and I'm very happy for her that she has that experience you know she she should be able to walk into these spaces and say hey I know these people my my auntie is Samantha Pinto UT Austin that's good that's amazing I want her to have that I want her to have that and I think it's the self-confidence whether people go on and get a PhD or not in a particular what we're doing is empowering people in the space in which they are functioning.

Sharon Harley: 44:52

And so um I think we're obligated to share the joys and the richness but also the confidence with coming and knowing how to operate in those spaces and I mean I'd like to be in I mean there's something even as simple as where you sit in the room when you get to that room these are all kind of little tricks of the training we're gonna empower you in multiple ways and give you that self-confidence.

Sam: 45:24

Yeah and just revealing that hidden curriculum again and again as you unwrap it as you were saying Dr. Harley making it not begrudging people when they don't have to right when we try to build it into the system that you don't have to to have that be the fight that's repeating and both of you have focused on that um so much. Dr. Harley at the end of our episodes we like to reflect on music and you've already reflected that your daughter was drawn to that which was amazing before our uh recorded conversation started. Can you tell us a little bit about the soundtrack to your upcoming book um that can either be what you played while you were writing it if you're a music person in the background or what you'd include if it had an accompanying soundtrack like LT's book has layers of soundtracks. There's now two soundtracks for Smart Girl if you did not know. What's your soundtrack Dr. Harley?

Sharon Harley: 46:32

Well like almost all kinds of music I had a transformative moment when I listened to James Brown for the time I was involved with the Black Panther movement. I didn't think I could smile I didn't think I could dance or have any fun I would go to a party embarrass my sister by being at a party on Howard's campus and I would be reading while the party was going on my sister was so embarrassed she told me to go in the bathroom if I insisted on reading and of course I went in the bathroom and was reading to somebody had to use the facilities.

Speaker 2: 47:14

Oh my gosh.

Sharon Harley: 47:15

But somebody played a James Brown song I jumped up from the sofa and slid across the floor and as I told my students I've been normal ever since but just yesterday I talked about going to the last concert that Chuck Brown gave and he of course the godfather go go and of course people think oh you know how I look or whatever but I was a groupie had to take a nap before I went to the show because he doesn't come on 1130 or 12 o'clock I stood up as a uh you know a groupie for an hour and a half to 130 um and somebody has a video of that and oftentimes I said oh I hope my students aren't around I'm gonna put some shades on because I don't want them to see me and then my husband said well you know he's gonna come back on at uh around two o'clock and we you know were of a certain age then we had to get around that beltway we couldn't wait until he came back on but anyway Chuck Brown of course represents the power and the force and nanny Helen Burroughs a church woman so I gotta find me a church song but he resonates with working class people and that's what Nanny Helen Burroughs did no matter how uh famous she became she didn't want to forget her working class people that was her background and that's why she hit a national training school for women and girls.

LT: 48:50

So then of course now I love um Gregory Porter and uh Aretha Franklin so my soundtrack would have uh certainly Mississippi goddamn uh so a whole series of performers and singers um I just love music and and you know I saw Phaela when I was in West Africa and I'm trying to get my colleague who hits the uh the music division here at Berlin to bring people from South Africa there's a fabulous singer I saw when I was at Harvard last year from South Africa she was just amazing so I I can't pick one thing but just a combination of people who make you that's why we go with the whole sound you don't want to pick it this is amazing that was awesome that was thank you so much and that was so funny I didn't I just wanted to add I was trying to remember what it was edited James was oh yes yes yes little ash uh little ashley introduced me and we were singing at last to each other so how appropriate I will I will this is wonderful this yeah this has been just so delightful I don't know if you can see the tears in my eyes but it's been it's been so amazing my mom said to tell you hello and Robert too and Robert as well um but please let's figure out how you can come sometime in the spring and I'll bring you here absolutely absolutely something I'm not sure what it is I'll bring you here okay absolutely Dr I have my friends at UT Austin um uh uh Laticia La Florian oh she's amazing yeah I was on a dissertation committee and yeah an amazing scholar and a really wonderful human yes exactly she comes to my writers I also have writers retreats in my vineyard I've had her for 20 some years and I've bring scholars from around the country to come and work on their books with Joyce Ladner David Deb Willers Betty Collier Thomas a whole slew of people because we need that space too to reflect to think to get away and my sister gives me a discount on the rental because she said I know the act my sister said I know academics don't make that much money so I'm gonna give you a discount and I'm happy to get it I love it I love it and we don't right I know like in the world we make money but you know um but I love it.

Sam: 51:37

Compared to lawyer we don't well this was so amazing I just can't get over it. I know we'll stop recording in a moment um but I just want to thank you for this episode um thank you I want to do a whole other thing about how all of our guests look amazing and have great style is this this this thread through everything that tells me also who you are LT um but again two legends in conversation lucky to be a fly on this wall thank you everyone we'll catch you next time okay thank