Tionne Parris

Biography

Tionne Alliyah Parris is a historian specialising in African American and Black British history, with particular interests in Black internationalism, transnational activism, surveillance, and the global circulation of Black radical thought. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the David Bruce Centre for the Study of the Americas, undertaking the project, ‘A Tricky Business: Black Internationalism and the Architecture of Anglo-American Surveillance, 1933–1976.’ This project examines how Black internationalism shaped intelligence cooperation, government policy, and diplomatic relations between Britain and the United States, reconstructing the networks through which security knowledge was produced and shared across the Atlantic world.

Her previous research explored the ideological connections between early twentieth-century Black radical women and the Black Power Movement, focusing on the transnational exchange of ideas, strategies, and activist networks across generations.

Publications

Books

• 'Long Distance Runners: Black Women Radicals and the Struggle for Liberation’, (monograph), Bloomsbury Academic, February 2027.
• ‘African Americans and A New History of the USA’, Gerald Horne, edited by T.A.Parris, International Publishers, 2024.
• ‘I Dare Say: A Gerald Horne Reader’, edited by T.A. Parris, OR Books, 2024.

Book Chapters

• ‘Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction and the History of 21st Century Propaganda.’, in Reading Black Reconstruction Today (edited collection). University of California Press, August 2026.
• “Negro Women Can Think and Speak and Write!”, Jones' Speech to the Court Before Her Sentencing, in ‘Internationalism in Practice: Claudia Jones and the “Bestial” War on Korea’, Iskra Books, 2024.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• ‘Claudia Jones and Black Power: A Close Reading of The West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News’, American Communist History, 2024.
• ‘Claudia Jones & Black Radicalism in Britain’, History Matters Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, Autumn 2022.

Public Scholarship and Commentary

• ‘Defiant Libraries: The Local and Diasporic Efforts That Have Shaped Black
  Archives’, Times Literary Supplement, 2025.
• ‘A Guide to Action’, History Workshop, February 2025.
• ‘In Memory of Roy Sawh (1934–2023)’, History Matters Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2,
  Autumn 2023.
• ‘Harry Belafonte: A Singer and Actor but an Activist at Heart.’ The Conversation, 28 April 2023.
• ‘Government Needs to Put Housing and Poverty at the Top of Its Agenda.’ The
  House Magazine (PoliticsHome), 1 October 2022.
• ‘Abolish All Prisons: Examining the Roots’, Lowercase Pamphlets, September 2022.
• ‘What Is History For?: Activism and Historical Imagination.’ Royal Historical
  Society, 27 June 2022.

Reviews

• Communist Women’s Activism around the World, Part 1: Global Foremothers
  (Review): ‘The Palgrave Handbook of Communist Women Activists Around the World’, by Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, American Communist History, 23(3–4), 114–116, 2024.
• ‘Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile.’ History Matters Journal, Vol. 2, No. 1, Autumn 2021.