Since 1865 and the passage of the 13^th Amendment, every time African Americans have made advances toward full participation in our democracy, white reaction has fueled a deliberate and relentless rollback of their gains. In this presentation, Anderson will discuss her New York Times bestselling book that carefully links historical flashpoints when social progress for African Americans was countered by deliberate and cleverly crafted opposition.

This dramatic hip-hop spoken word and dance performance depicts the death and inner life of a young woman, Myeisha Mills, based on the true story of Tyisha Miller. It reimagines the night she was shot by four police officers while she lay unconscious in a car. The two-person play takes a powerfully clear-eyed look at the relationships between race, the body, and violence by following the trajectory and impact of the 12 bullets that struck her—each one triggering its own unique memory.

Performers: John Merchant and Natali Micciche

With Nancy Gertner, Harvard Law, Retired Federal Judge and Lecia Brooks, Southern Poverty Law Center; moderated by UMN American Studies Regents Professor Elaine Tyler May.

This panel discussion brings Gertner and Brooks into conversation to discuss issues of race and justice in America. The two discuss the roles of the justice system and advocacy, and why the history of the late 1960s is so relevant to issues of violence and race today.

In the song “Immigrants (We Get the Job Done)” from Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton Mixtape, the settlement of the Americas is framed through liberal understandings of arrival that transform chattel slavery and forced labor into the exceptional narratives of pulling oneself up from hard labor to freedom. It reflects current political mobilizations against xenophobia and immigration bans that insist that we are all immigrants to the Americas. And it erases completely the ongoing colonization of Indigenous peoples and lands.

A panel discussion exploring how the roles of race, religion and gender are influencing American politics, and particularly the 2016 elections. Perspectives from a variety of fields across the University of Minnesota looking at the current political climate, and its impact on the future of American government. Confirmed panelists include Jeanne Kilde (Religious Studies), Enid Logan (Sociology, African American Studies), Mary Vavrus (Communication Studies, Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies), and moderator Eric Schwartz (Public Affairs).

Putting Winsor McCay's iconic comic strip The Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend into conversation with the federal government's reorganization of consumable goods into toxic, intoxicating and medicinal substances at the turn of the twentieth century, this talk reconsiders the narrative of progressive-era governmental benevolence - in particular the Food and Drug Act of 1906 - to consider where and how affective form and materiality became aligned with the racialized carcerality.