"The Sound of Attica: Archie Shepp, Black Music, and Resistance" with Christopher R. Rogers

Show Notes: Today we're exploring the relationship between music, memory, abolition, and Black political thought through the lens of Christopher R. Rogers' essay, "How to Sample and Stretch a Prison Break: A Prelude to the Attica Blues." Using Archie Shepp's Attica Blues as a point of departure, the essay asks what it means to write in the spirit of Black music—not simply to analyze it, but to think, feel, and create through its rhythms, improvisations, and traditions.Our conversation ranges across the long legacy of the Attica uprising, insurgent listening, the relationship between music and writing, and the ways Black communities preserve history, memory, and political possibility through sound. We also discuss what it means to write for one's community rather than simply for the academy, how place shapes intellectual and artistic practice, and why archives are often found not only in books and institutions, but in neighborhoods, performances, conversations, and songs.Throughout, we reflect on the influence of figures including Archie Shepp, George Jackson, Toni Morrison, Clyde Woods, Katherine McKittrick, and many others, while considering how Black music continues to function as a living archive, a form of theory, and a rehearsal for collective liberation.Biography: Christopher R. Rogers is an educator, scholar, and cultural worker whose work centers on abolitionist education, Black studies, community organizing, and cultural preservation. Based in Philadelphia and originally from Chester, Pennsylvania, Rogers serves as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Writing Program at Haverford College, where he teaches courses on Black popular culture, educational justice, and social transformation. Rogers is a facilitator and member of the leadership team of the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction, a political education initiative that prepares organizers working against poverty, policing, mass incarceration, and other systems of oppression. Rogers also co-coordinates the Friends of the Henry Ossawa Tanner House, leading efforts to preserve the historic home of the renowned Black artist as a center for community education, Black heritage, and neighborhood organizing. His research includes studies of abolitionist organizing, community storytelling, and collaborative learning, he co-edited How We Stay Free: Notes on a Black Uprising, and published My City Needs Something: Portraits and Prose for Black Existence featuring photography by Karim Brown.Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/15/6/145