Quito Swan

Quito J. Swan is Professor of History and Director of Africana Studies at George Washington University. An award-winning scholar of Black internationalism, his most recent book, Born a Sufferah (Bloomsbury, 2025), explores the insurgent soundscapes of Dancehall music in the long 1990s. His Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-Colonialism and the African World (New York University Press) received the Association for the Study of African American Life and History’s 2023 Best Book in African American History Award. Swan’s Pauulu’s Diaspora: Black Internationalism and Environmental Justice (University Press of Florida) won the African American Intellectual History Society’s 2022 Pauli Murray Book Prize. Swan’s research has garnered fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Wilson International Center, and Australia's Research Council and other prestigious institutions. His writings have appeared in journals such as the Radical History Review, the Journal of Civil and Human Rights, and the Journal of African American History. He has formerly taught at Indiana University Bloomington, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Howard University and currently serves on the Executive Board of the Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD).

Session Title:

Being Revs, Becoming Revolutionaries

The quote you return to when thinking about community, culture & inclusion:

"Do you know what it means to have a revolution?"