Benjamin Cawthra

Biography

Benjamin Cawthra is a U.S. cultural and public historian. His book Blue Notes in Black and White: Photography and Jazz (University of Chicago Press, 2011) examines the evolving representation of jazz subjects from the swing era of the 1930s to the black nationalist 1960s. He has also published essays on musicians Miles Davis (2001) and Duke Ellington (2016); boxer Jack Johnson (2019); and photographer/curator Lee Tanner (2021). He is an associate director of the Lawrence de Graaf Center for Oral and Public History, where he is the host of the Outspoken podcast. He has directed or curated several history exhibitions for the Center, including New Birth of Freedom: Civil War to Civil Rights in...