RESEARCH
My research brings to life the rich history of African Americans and Mexican Americans in 20th century Los Angeles, California. I am currently working on a project titled, “Motherhood Menace: Black Women’s Activism as a Politics of Love” that examines how African American have centered motherhood in their family and community activism.
My journal article in the Pacific Historical Review titled, “The Magna Carta to Liberate Our Cities”: African Americans, Mexican Americans, and the Model Cities Program in Los Angeles, explores the impact that the federal government’s Model Cities Program had on Black/Brown relations during the 1960s and 1970s. My book, Poverty Rebels: Black and Brown Protest in Post-Civil Rights America, examines the intersections of African American and Mexican American history since 1945 with a particular focus on how post-1965 federal policies shaped the development of Black-Brown relations. Set in Los Angeles, California during the post-civil rights decades, Poverty Rebels takes readers on a journey with poor Black and Brown Angelenos as they advocated for full access to institutions opened up by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Read more about my research here.
Poverty Rebels is currently available for purchase from The University of North Carolina Press and online retailers.
“A nuanced, clear argument for the central role that Black and Brown actors played in making the Los Angeles civil rights movement more racially inclusive and class-conscious.”
“Casey Nichols takes a compelling new tack in the study of Los Angeles’s civil rights struggles by front-ending the activism and agency of Black and Brown Angelenos in the fight for economic justice. By focusing on the War on Poverty and the Model Cities program, she makes an important contribution to our understanding of antipoverty crusades at the local level.”