The CSUSB History Department's Assistant Professor Marc Arsell Robinson has been invited for numerous media appearance and guest lectures following the publication of his new book from New York University Press, Washington State Rising: Black Power on Campus in the Pacific Northwest. It is not unusual for the author of an outstanding new scholarly book in History to be invited to present their findings in an academic context like a guest lecture, but in the past year, in addition to numerous scholarly book talks, Professor Robinson has also seen invitations for keynote addresses, newspaper interviews, and public radio appearances up and down the Pacific coast.

Most recently, the South Seattle Emerald featured a wide-ranging interview with Dr. Robinson in which journalist Adam Willems asked about protest and campus movements. In this interview, as in his recent book, Professor Robinson brings nuance and rich complexity to the landscape of campus protest and movements for social justice over the previous decades and up to the present. From the Black Student Unions of the 1960s and 1970s through the recent Gaza protests and crackdowns, Robinson is able to see both change and continuity in a number of variables such as gender inclusion, law enforcement responses and more.

In the lead-up to the book's August 2023 publication, Dr. Robinson was invited to programs including Libby Denkmann's "Soundside" on Seattle Public Radio's KUOW, and to speak with Brandon Hollingsworth on Spokane Public Radio, KPBX, in partnership with Rick Dulock and our KVCR station here in the Inland Empire. More recently, Robinson was invited to the New Books Network in February 2024 in conversation with Professor Stephen Hausmann of University of St. Thomas's in Minnesota. Also in February, Robinson spoke about his new book with Emmy Award-winning interviewer, Marilyn Solomon, through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. The book was also featured in an article by Leinani Lucas in the Seattle-based community newspaper, Real Change. In addition to these media appearances, Dr. Robinson has been invited to deliver keynote addresses at a number of museums, universities, and other venues from Eugene to Spokane to Seattle, across the states of Washington and Oregon. In nearly two dozen media and scholarly appearances, Professor Robinson has brought a spotlight to a topic and period that is important but underexamined in the history of the Pacific Northwest region and the national history of the Black power movement.

Based on extensive oral history interviews among other source materials, Robinson's new book recounts the development of the Black Student Union (BSU) across campuses in Washington state, tracing the differences in rural and urban contexts, the ways in which the BSU originated and developed across the region, and its impact. While focused on the years 1967 to 1970, Robinson also provides context for later developments in social justice activism up to the present. Washington State Rising: Black Power on Campus in the Pacific Northwest is available from NYU Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other book sellers, in hardcover and ebook version.