Join us on for a presentation by Dr. Leslie Campbell Hime, who will speak on "Politics and Profit: Images of Black Middle Class Women in Diahann Caroll’s Julia.”

Julia aired on NBC from September 17, 1968 to May 25, 1971. Featuring Diahann Carroll as Julia Baker, a twenty-six-year-old widowed black nurse raising her six-year-old son, Corey, in an integrated apartment building, Julia was the first situation comedy to feature a black professional-female lead. This presentation will examine Julia in the sociopolitical moment of the late 1960s. Diahann Caroll received the 1968 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In a Television Series for this sit-com. It is widely considered the first television program to star an African-American woman in a "non-stereotypical role." 

Leslie Campbell Hime has a BA in English from the Benjamin Banneker Honors College at Prairie View A&M University, an MA in English from Eastern Michigan University, a MA in Library Science from the University of Arizona and a PhD in English from Michigan State University. Before becoming manager of the Richland Public Library in 2017, she was professor of African American literature and media studies at the University of Arizona. Leslie has given keynote speeches, conference presentations, and interviews and is currently at work on an article on Brownie’s Book, a children’s magazine published by the NAACP in the 1920’s.  

Consider watching the first two episodes of Julia, before the presentation.

Email darnold@columbiabasin.edu to get the Zoom link.

This guest presentation is part of a series of guest lectures for ICS 135, African American Cultures, funded by grants from the CBC Foundation and the DEI Committee.