Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated precisely one year after giving his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech. In it, he advised that the oppressive situations felt by Black Americans and Vietnamese communities were not so different: both were victims of America's racism. Now 52 years later, his vision holds lessons for interracial organizing and active allyship.
“Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro” - Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
Dr. King was greatly opposed to the ideas of scientific racism, as detailed in a collection of his works entitled Strength to Love. He goes on to argue that supporters of enslavement in America placed their morals on “...pseudo-scientific writing and argue that the Negro’s brain is smaller than the white man’s brain.” Inspired by the above quote as well as a chapter on scientific racism in Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to Be An Antiracist, Building Castles Upon Sand is a meditation in workshop form. Sit with this former evolutionary scientist turned biology teacher as she comes to terms with what it means to be a black scientist in love with a biological field, and its forefathers, that gave rise to the moral justification for the enslavement of her ancestors. Along the way, you will be asked to help her answer the question: Can Darwin still be my hero?
A staged reading of Clybourne Park as a two-part experience following an earlier showing of A Raisin in the Sun. Clybourne Park serves as a kind of 50 year follow-up to Raisin and might provoke good conversations about who gets to live where and what determines that. Key questions to consider are: What are the narratives of neighborhoods and how and when do they change?
The Exonian Encounter Committee will engage students in a community building workshop that gives space for open dialogue about the challenges of marginalized or “othered” groups within Exeter. Our mission is to establish and sustain community events that encourage all of us to embrace our differences, challenge our preconceptions, and foster connections with others in a respectful environment.
How has food been used in the liberation of African American people and communities? How can food be used to empower, engage and enhance the liberation struggles of today. Join author and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty and Chef Kurt Evans in a discussion on the past, present and future of culinary and food justice and the Civil Rights tradition.
There is a literal as well as a figurative application to one of Dr. King’s oft repeated statements. Going to the mountaintop literally changes your perspective on life and the world. Being on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park changed my concept of what it means to be human, and what it means to be American. Our nation is liberally blessed with mountains, many of which are protected in the National Park and forest systems. But who gets to visit them has historically been a function of race/ethnicity and privilege. As we strive to democratize the public lands system and make these icons of “the public square” truly egalitarian, we come closer to fulfilling Dr. King’s vision and goal, and achieving our country’s stated ideals - Liberty. Equality. Justice for All.
What does it mean to ‘change the narrative’? Who owns this narrative and how was it constructed? What are we changing this narrative and how do we succeed in our efforts?
This workshop invites these questions and more to push the boundaries in our thinking, giving way to breadth and depth in search for truth. A key component to the work of Bro. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was being able to tell his story and the stories of resilient people in the face of adversity. The undeniable truth in these stories had the power to change hearts, lead minds to pondering, lead writers to write, legislators to draft new laws, and produced a call to action that changed the American narrative in his time, course correcting years of disenfranchisement for black (and other) Americans, inspiring the world. Through the lens of four stories—the Mattaponi tribe, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, and my own—this workshop seeks to draw from that power and empower Exonians, faculty, and staff to lead lives of truth telling.
In this workshop participants will explore MLK Jr's call for nonviolent direct action as a strategy for confronting social inequities. We will use current day campaigns like the Black Lives Matter movement to deconstruct what he meant in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail when discussing the creation of a tension and crisis that can no longer be ignored to dramatize the need for action around issues of violence and injustice. Participants will also explore the history of nonviolent campaigns in the US and abroad to gain a better understanding of the difference between campaigns, tactics, and strategies. We will use the Civil Rights movement as a baseline for this exercise. These exercises will include larger and smaller breakout group discussions, brainstorming, writing, and report backs.
This workshop explores the legacy of Martin Luther King through an exploration of the new exhibit, “Voices of Resilience: The Intersection of Women on the Move.” This workshop will help students connect the dots of King’s legacy and assess the state of diversity, inclusion and equity today. With music, voices and media, the session will explore the new media “storyteller movement” in pursuit of justice.
This workshop will encourage participants to think through and with the concept of civil rights. What is the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement in the contemporary moment? In what ways do different communities engage with the achievement of civil rights or lack therefore? The workshop will specifically interrogate, what civil rights are yet to be achieved? The workshop leader will utilize ethnographic research with the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem to think through these questions. The workshop will explore the Hebrew Israelite perspectives on how the issues of sovereignty and self-determination counter the notion of a temporal marker on the Civil Rights Movement. More specifically, the workshop will allow students to ask, in what ways do civil rights claims have racialized norms of achieving justice embedded into its structure? Is there a way to pursue justice for one’s community without adhering to established racial logics and hierarchies?
The Children's March is a 2004 American short documentary film about the Birmingham, Alabama civil rights marches in the 1960s, highlighting the bravery of young activists in Children's Crusade. It was directed and produced by Robert Houston.
"Your silence will not protect you" "What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say?" (Audre Lorde)
This workshop utilizing interactive activities to review the mind science of bias and narrative transformation while reviewing the impact of grassroots activism against the systemic and structural oppression. We will focus on the importance centering the power of all voices, especially those disproportionately impacted by all systems of oppression, invisibility, and erasure; interrupting the roots, institutions, and conditions of violence; and discuss ways to create new, powerful and liberated communities that are thriving, just, and accountable.
In this generative poetry writing workshop participants will read “Autobiography of Eve” by poet Ansel Elkins. Participants will discuss how the poem relates to revolutionary concepts of freedom, agency, joy, and reclaiming ignored or misrepresented narratives. Finally, participants will write and share their own “Autobiography of” poems that demonstrate the ways speaking truth to power, telling our stories on our terms, can be a step towards social justice.
We will focus on human experiences of vulnerability and incorporating compassion as a powerful practice that can deepen our relationships and strengthen our resolve. While each of us has internalized negative messages about what it means to be vulnerable, communities and institutions respond differently to our expressions of vulnerability based upon our identities and our access to power and privilege. As adult leaders supporting youth as transformational leaders can be challenging for many reasons. With an acknowledging the importance of equity, what vulnerabilities are most uncomfortable to address and express and why? This workshop will facilitate discussion around understanding what is at risk for those impacted by systemic oppression and what is at risk for those who benefit from it while existing in communities that are thriving, just and accountable.
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated precisely one year after giving his 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech. In it, he advised that the oppressive situations felt by Black Americans and Vietnamese communities were not so different: both were victims of America's racism. Now 52 years later, his vision holds lessons for interracial organizing and active allyship.
“Science was commandeered to prove the biological inferiority of the Negro” - Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963
Dr. King was greatly opposed to the ideas of scientific racism, as detailed in a collection of his works entitled Strength to Love. He goes on to argue that supporters of enslavement in America placed their morals on “...pseudo-scientific writing and argue that the Negro’s brain is smaller than the white man’s brain.” Inspired by the above quote as well as a chapter on scientific racism in Ibram X. Kendi’s, How to Be An Antiracist, Building Castles Upon Sand is a meditation in workshop form. Sit with this former evolutionary scientist turned biology teacher as she comes to terms with what it means to be a black scientist in love with a biological field, and its forefathers, that gave rise to the moral justification for the enslavement of her ancestors. Along the way, you will be asked to help her answer the question: Can Darwin still be my hero?
How has food been used in the liberation of African American people and communities? How can food be used to empower, engage and enhance the liberation struggles of today. Join author and culinary historian Michael W. Twitty and Chef Kurt Evans in a discussion on the past, present and future of culinary and food justice and the Civil Rights tradition.
There is a literal as well as a figurative application to one of Dr. King’s oft repeated statements. Going to the mountaintop literally changes your perspective on life and the world. Being on Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park changed my concept of what it means to be human, and what it means to be American. Our nation is liberally blessed with mountains, many of which are protected in the National Park and forest systems. But who gets to visit them has historically been a function of race/ethnicity and privilege. As we strive to democratize the public lands system and make these icons of “the public square” truly egalitarian, we come closer to fulfilling Dr. King’s vision and goal, and achieving our country’s stated ideals - Liberty. Equality. Justice for All.
What does it mean to ‘change the narrative’? Who owns this narrative and how was it constructed? What are we changing this narrative and how do we succeed in our efforts?
This workshop invites these questions and more to push the boundaries in our thinking, giving way to breadth and depth in search for truth. A key component to the work of Bro. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was being able to tell his story and the stories of resilient people in the face of adversity. The undeniable truth in these stories had the power to change hearts, lead minds to pondering, lead writers to write, legislators to draft new laws, and produced a call to action that changed the American narrative in his time, course correcting years of disenfranchisement for black (and other) Americans, inspiring the world. Through the lens of four stories—the Mattaponi tribe, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Toni Morrison, and my own—this workshop seeks to draw from that power and empower Exonians, faculty, and staff to lead lives of truth telling.
In this workshop participants will explore MLK Jr's call for nonviolent direct action as a strategy for confronting social inequities. We will use current day campaigns like the Black Lives Matter movement to deconstruct what he meant in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail when discussing the creation of a tension and crisis that can no longer be ignored to dramatize the need for action around issues of violence and injustice. Participants will also explore the history of nonviolent campaigns in the US and abroad to gain a better understanding of the difference between campaigns, tactics, and strategies. We will use the Civil Rights movement as a baseline for this exercise. These exercises will include larger and smaller breakout group discussions, brainstorming, writing, and report backs.
This workshop explores the legacy of Martin Luther King through an exploration of the new exhibit, “Voices of Resilience: The Intersection of Women on the Move.” This workshop will help students connect the dots of King’s legacy and assess the state of diversity, inclusion and equity today. With music, voices and media, the session will explore the new media “storyteller movement” in pursuit of justice.
This workshop will encourage participants to think through and with the concept of civil rights. What is the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement in the contemporary moment? In what ways do different communities engage with the achievement of civil rights or lack therefore? The workshop will specifically interrogate, what civil rights are yet to be achieved? The workshop leader will utilize ethnographic research with the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem to think through these questions. The workshop will explore the Hebrew Israelite perspectives on how the issues of sovereignty and self-determination counter the notion of a temporal marker on the Civil Rights Movement. More specifically, the workshop will allow students to ask, in what ways do civil rights claims have racialized norms of achieving justice embedded into its structure? Is there a way to pursue justice for one’s community without adhering to established racial logics and hierarchies?
The Children's March is a 2004 American short documentary film about the Birmingham, Alabama civil rights marches in the 1960s, highlighting the bravery of young activists in Children's Crusade. It was directed and produced by Robert Houston.
In this generative poetry writing workshop participants will read “Autobiography of Eve” by poet Ansel Elkins. Participants will discuss how the poem relates to revolutionary concepts of freedom, agency, joy, and reclaiming ignored or misrepresented narratives. Finally, participants will write and share their own “Autobiography of” poems that demonstrate the ways speaking truth to power, telling our stories on our terms, can be a step towards social justice.