Unfinished Revolution: Social Movements, Freedom Struggles, and the American Democratic Development

APSA’s Engaging America’s 250th Webinar Series

Unfinished Revolution: Social Movements, Freedom Struggles, and the American Democratic Development

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

12:30 – 2:00 PM (ET)

Register Here

 Join APSA for a discussion connecting American democratic development, social movements, and the enduring meaning of the U.S. Declaration of Independence.  

The U.S. Declaration of Independence ushered in an era of freedom, self-government, and personal liberty. Yet the ideals for equality before the law were not always operationalized in government practices. Social movements and efforts to make the ideals of the Declaration of Independence a reality for everyone have marked American political development from its founding through the present. 

Participants: 

• Elizabeth Matto, Rutgers University (moderator) 
• Marcus Board Jr., Howard University 
• Christina Wolbrecht, University of Notre Dame 
• Shamira Gelbman, Wabash College 
• LaGina Gause , University of California, San Diego 
• Melvin Rogers, Brown University  

Meet the Participants

Elizabeth Matto

Elizabeth Matto is a Research Professor and Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. A member of the faculty of the Eagleton Institute of Politics for over fifteen years, she previously served as the Director of Eagleton’s Center for Youth Political Participation (CYPP), leading research as well as educational and public service efforts designed to encourage and support the political learning of high school and college students and civic action among young adults, including those holding and running for office.

Marcus Board Jr.

Marcus Board Jr. is an Associate Professor of Political Science and Black Politics Committee Chair at Howard University, currently a Democracy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School with the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Co-President of the American Political Science Association REP section, Book Review Editor with the National Review of Black Politics, and an associate with the Howard Initiative on Public Opinion. Much of their work focuses on American politics, political theory, race, gender, and power. Dr. Board is the author of the multiple award winning book Invisible Weapons: Infiltrating Resistance and Defeating Movements (Oxford), which discusses the Movement for Black Lives, #SayHerName campaign, and the ways everyday people get convinced to not advocate for their needs.

Much of their current work focuses on Black political psychology, organic intellectualism in community organizing, and the evolving foundations of U.S. democracy. In progress is a book project tentatively “Democracy is Black: Erasing Political Violence and Embracing Pluralism at the Margins” engages 21st century Black political belief systems and their rejection of political violence. In this wide ranging work, Board addresses quantitative methodological norms not by rejecting them but by asking more foundationally what is political science and why are politics at the margins essential for inalienably establishing democracies?

Dr. Board’s community work has grown over the past twenty years, building politically and personally connected communities while advocating for youth empowerment, abolition, and systemic accountability. In two Democracy Teach-In’s, Dr. Board proudly embraced the belief that we travel further together. Work with over thirty local, national, and student organizations aimed at improving civic participation and expanding the face of power at the grassroots level, alongside over sixty presenters, Dr. Board is excited to continue advancing the ideals of community.

Christina Wolbrecht

Christina Wolbrecht is Professor of Political Science and the C. Robert and Margaret Hanley Family Director of the Washington Program at the University of Notre Dame, where she teaches and writes about American politics, political parties, gender and politics, and American political development. Her new book with David E. Campbell, See Jane Run: How Women Politicians Matter for Young People (Chicago 2025), examines the impact of women candidates on the beliefs and behaviors of American adolescents. She is the author of two books with J. Kevin Corder on the impact of women voters on American elections: A Century of Votes for Women: American Elections since Suffrage (Cambridge 2020) and Counting Women’s Ballots: Female Voters from Suffrage Through the New Deal (Cambridge 2016). Her first book, The Politics of Women’s Rights (Princeton 2000), describes and explains the polarization of the major American parties on women’s rights issues, such as abortion and the ERA, in the mid- to late-20th century. Her current projects include an investigation into the impact of women’s suffrage and women’s organizing on state legislative politics, civic culture, and other aspects of American political development, with Mirya Holman and  Michael P. Olson.

Shamira Gelbman is Professor of Political Science at Wabash College, where she has been on the faculty since 2012. Her research focuses on social movements, interest groups, and public interest lobbyists’ role in American political development. Her book, The Civil Rights Lobby: The Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and the Second Reconstruction (Temple University Press, 2021), explores how nearly a hundred organizations collaborated to lobby for federal civil rights legislation during the 1950s and 1960s. She’s also the co-editor of Youth Activism in America: An Encyclopedia of Ideals in Action (Bloomsbury, 2026). Currently, she’s working on an interdisciplinary project on women lobbyists during World War II and the postwar era.

At Wabash, she has taught a wide range of American politics courses, recently including Election Polling & Public Opinion, 100+ Years of Woman Suffrage, Politics of the Civil Rights Movement, and a freshman seminar on the food labeling controversies. She received the 2025 APSA Award for Teaching Innovation for her development of a civil rights conference simulation based on archival research in the papers of A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and George A. Wiley.

She completed her B.A. in Political Science at the City University of New York’s Hunter College and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Government at the University of Virginia.

LaGina Gause

LaGina Gause’s research interests are in American politics with a focus on the participation and representation of low income and racial and ethnic minority communities. She is the author of The Advantage of Disadvantage: Costly Protest and Political Representation for Marginalized Groups, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. In other work, she examines how resources and incentives affect the strategic choices made by candidates running for office, interest groups lobbying the federal government, and legislators responding to the participation and public opinion of constituents of different races, ethnicity, and income levels.

Before joining the department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego as an assistant professor, she was a Democracy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Political Science from the University of Michigan, her M.A. in Political Science from the University of Michigan, and her B.A. in Political Science from Howard University.

Melvin Rogers

Melvin Rogers is the Edna and Richard Salomon Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the Democracy Project at Brown University. He is also a faculty affiliate in the Department of Africana Studies at Brown University, where he teaches courses on democratic theory, American political thought, African American political thought, and pragmatism. In both his teaching and writing, he explores the relationship between character, culture, and politics in sustaining democratic life. 

Professor Rogers is the author of The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy and The Darkened Light of Faith: Race, Democracy, and Freedom in African American Political Thought. He is also the editor of John Dewey’s The Public and Its Problems, co-editor of African American Political Thought: A Collected History (with Jack Turner), and co-editor of Oxford University Press’s New Histories of Philosophy book series (with Christia Mercer). His scholarship has received wide recognition, including selection as a 2026 Andrew Carnegie Fellow and the 2023 James W. C. Pennington Award from Heidelberg University. For The Darkened Light of Faith, he received the Ralph J. Bunch Award, the David Easton Award from APSA’s Foundations of Political Thought section, the Best Book Award from APSA’s American Political Thought section, and the David and Elaine Spitz Prize.

APSA’s Engaging America’s 250th Webinar Series  

Showcasing political science’s diverse range of scholarly and educational expertise, APSA’s “Engaging America’s 250th” Webinar Series explores the U.S. founding era’s political-historical meaning and legacy from a variety of angles. 

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