Hajar Yazdiha — SPARQNOW

At-a-Glance

Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California
Author of "The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement" (2023)
Research focuses on the politics of inclusion and exclusion with regard to ethno-racial identities
Explores how the words of Martin Luther King Jr. have been co-opted and sanitized
Earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2017
Contributes editorials to publications including The Conversation, The Hill, the Los Angeles Times, and Time

Biography

Hajar Yazdiha is an American sociologist and an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, where she is affiliated with the Equity Research Institute. Her work focuses on the politics of inclusion and exclusion concerning ethno-racial identities. In May 2023, she published her first book, "The Struggle for the People's King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement."

Yazdiha's book explores how the words and memory of Martin Luther King Jr.