april l. graham-jackson
Institute and Department of Sociology Postdoctoral Fellow
april l. graham-jackson is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Sociology and the Mansueto Institute. She is also a Postdoctoral Research Affiliate with Chicago Studies, the Committee on Environment, Geography, and Urbanization (CEGU), and the Urban Theory Lab. As a third-generation Black Chicagolander, april’s research brings together geographic development, racial capitalism, sub/urban migration, and music and sound with a focus on how these forces shape Black identity across the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Her work broadens the geographic, migrational, and generational scope of Black American life beyond “the urban” by examining the placemaking practices and spatial imaginaries of Black people who developed Black sub\urban cities, villages, and neighborhoods in the South Suburbs of Chicago in the post-Reconstruction and post-Civil Rights eras. april explores the geography of intraracial relations within Black American communities and how Black people express feelings of belonging, strangeness, and a Black sense of place across urban-regional landscapes.
april holds a PhD in Geography from the University of California, Berkeley and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Mount Holyoke College as the first person with a bachelor’s degree in Black Geographies. She has published in academic journals including the Professional Geographer, Music and Science, and the Journal of Urban Affairs and founded the Black Geographies Graduate Student Conference and Black Geosonicologies Research Group. april and her husband Roderick are the artists behind Black Chicagoland… a multi-sensory project that maps Black life across the Chicago Metropolitan Area through photography, sound, music, acoustic ecologies, and personal narratives.
Advisers: Neil Brenner, Lucy Flower Professor of Urban Sociology, Chair, Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU), and Director, Urban Theory Lab; Chris Skrable, Executive Director of Chicago Studies and Experiential Learning and Assistant Dean of the College; and Christopher Berry, William J. and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor, Director, Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation.