Zariyah Grant

Zariyah's dissertation investigates the dishonoured communities of Black subjects who operated in the fringes, slums, and undergrounds of post-WWII New York City. Grandmothers who trafficked narcotics, the "junkies" who used drugs, juvenile delinquents, thieves, and stubborn loiterers all comprised a pestilent swarm engaged in practices of Black deviance that remained marginal to studies of African American history and excluded from even the most radical conceptualizations of Black politics.
The silences surrounding Black subjects who rejected  the trappings of racial uplift, social reform, and revolution present a challenge to guiding principles of African American studies that often impose a reading of Black history that privileges those who are "striving" and "respectable." Zariyah's research draws on various primary sources housed in multiple archives to excavate the irreverent practices and subjectivities that comprise what she calls the Black Deviant Tradition.