“Democracy’s Foot Soldiers” A Conversation with Reena Goldthree and Ada Ferrer

Join the Department of African American Studies for an engaging conversation with Reena N. Goldthree, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, and Dr. Ada Ferrer, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, as they discuss Professor Goldthree’s newly published book, Democracy’s Foot Soldiers: World War I and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean (Princeton University Press, 2025). The conversation will explore the experiences of Afro-Caribbean soldiers in World War I and their transnational struggle for equality, drawing on archival research from the Caribbean, England, and the United States. Goldthree and Ferrer will highlight the intersections of war, empire, and social movements in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Afro-Latino/x communities. A brief reception and book signing will follow.

Reena N. Goldthree’s scholarship focuses on Latin America and the Caribbean, with particular interests in social movements, labor, migration, and Caribbean feminism. At Princeton, she teaches courses examining Afro-Latino/x, Caribbean, and Latin American histories from the colonial period to the present. Her work has appeared in journals such as Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, and The American Historian. She has also co-edited special issues and published essays on gender, anti-colonialism, and Black diasporic history.

Goldthree has received research support from the American Historical Association, Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, Fulbright, and others. She is a former chair of the Caribbean Studies Section of the Conference on Latin American History and has served on the executive board of the Coordinating Council for Women in History.

This event is open to the public.