april l. graham-jackson

i am a proud third generation Black chicagoan, former music journalist, and phd candidate and berkeley Black geographies fellow. my research explores how music and sound as racialized features of everyday life illuminate the ways Black chicagoans internalize emplacement, navigate urban to suburban migration, and confront the geographical redevelopment of urban-regional areas in the post-civil rights era. i examine the racialization of music and sound and how they are mediated, contextualized, and experienced through the everyday rhythms of Black urban and suburban life. urban renewal, post-war suburbanization, and other forms of geographical restructuring reshape a sense of belonging within Black communities and how Black people define Blackness through music, sound, and place-based orientation. my work demonstrates how the (de)reconfiguration of city-regions through racial capitalist development transformed chicago Blackness into territories of belonging and strangeness in post-civil rights chicagoland.

i am the founder of the Black geographies graduate student conference, co-author of the Black geographies library guide with Robert Moeller, and co-chair of the Black geosonicologies research group with Sibahle Ndwayana through the center for race and gender. i am also collaborating with my husband roderick e. jackson on a multimedia project that explores the interplay between the sociosonic, music, and visual textures of Black livingness in chicagoland, which is funded through the andrew w. mellon Black studies collaboratory grant. my doctoral research is supported by the chancellor’s fellowship and mentored research fellowship with dr. nathan f. sayre.