30 Conversations on Race and Social Justice at The New School
The New School is a university founded on the values of social justice and inclusivity. As we work to fulfill our educational mission, we are committed to providing resources that combat racism and speak out against injustice.
The unjust killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many named and unnamed others have caused profound grief, pain, and anger across our community (read President Dwight A. McBride’s response to these tragedies here). As part of our response to these deaths, we’re revisiting some of the classes, panels, and discussions we’ve hosted over the years that address social justice, equity, and antiracism.
We hope you join us in taking the time to watch, listen, and learn.
“There’s nothing to fear about the word transgress, it just means to push against the boundaries.” — bell hooks
Watch Dr. bell hooks (Scholar-in-Residence at the College of Eugene Lang from 2013–2015) in conversation with Dr. Cornel West, Laverne Cox, Kevin Powell, Gloria Steinem, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, and Jill Soloway, or click here for the full playlist of hooks’ more than 20 discussions at The New School.
Moving from Pain to Power
“Imagine what a Black loving world looks like? It sounds like an easy question but people tend to not have an answer when I ask them…folks can not seem to work their imagination in such a way where they can even see a world, dream a world, where Black people, Brown people, oppressed people, are not assailed by either the state or some other means, and it made me think about how survival, or being in a mode of survival, inhibits or stops or keeps us from having the capacity to even dream, which is a violence that is more pronounced, I think, than the gun violence that can deaden us on the street.” — Darnell Moore in conversation with bell hooks.
Are You Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body
Black Female Voices: Who is Listening?
“When we work for freedom we cannot rest because it is a constant struggle.” — bell hooks
As early as 1948, W.E.B. DuBois taught a university course in African-American history and culture at The New School. Almost seventy years later, in 2016, the student group The New Black School continued that tradition by organizing Black Lives Matter 101, a series of “classes” examining Black social movements in the 21st century. Watch those classes:
Class 1 — Mobilizing the African Diaspora
Class 2 — Slow Death: Black Health and Environmental Justice
Class 3 — Faith in America’s Social Movements
Class 4 — Tech and New Media
Class 5 —New Civil Rights Movement
“Perhaps that’s what all human relationships boil down to: Would you save my life? or would you take it?”―Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
The New School’s Creative Writing Program partnered with PEN America in the fall of 2016 in hosting a tribute to the late Toni Morrison. That evening, Morrison received the 2016 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. The event featured performances by actress Adepero Oduye, actor Delroy Lindo, jazz pianist Jason Moran, mezzo-soprano Alicia Hall Moran, and Master of Ceremonies Kevin Young, Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Watch this one all the way through as, at the 1:12:00 minute mark, Morrison shares her remarks and reads from a then-new fiction project.
In the fall of 2017, the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment hosted a free public course titled Race in the U.S. The course brought together scholars, experts, thought leaders and activists to examine such issues as racial stratification, implicit bias, and the complex, intersectional relationships between race, gender, and class. Class speakers included Michael Omi, Rachel Godsil, Tressie McMillan Cottom, Deva Woodly and Shanelle Matthews, and Samuel Sinyangwe and Vincent Warren, among others. Watch Mindy Fullilove’s lecture:
“As a black girl, I don’t think I can understand why my skin color and my gender makes me less worthy of attention and potential, so I really just thought if I were able to talk about something that I’d been experiencing my whole life, it would benefit a lot of people.” — Naomi Wadler
Twelve-year-old social justice and youth activist Naomi Wadler talked with award-winning journalist Elaine Welteroth during the Festival of New about the power of youth advocacy and the future of social justice leadership, and attempt to answer the question — what can each of us do to make a difference?
“I don’t want people to become colorblind, if you have to forget I’m Black to walk with me, don’t walk with me.” — Reverend Al Sharpton
The Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment’s Henry Cohen Lecture Series is devoted to advancing social equity in America. In 2017, Civil Rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton spoke with Maya Wiley, University Professor and MSNBC Legal Analyst, about the key issues impacting civil rights, social justice and criminal justice reform in New York City and nationally.
“At its root, protest is this idea of telling the truth in public. We stood in streets and we used our bodies to tell the truth that Mike Brown should be alive, that Rekia (Boyd), Akai (Gurley), Tamir (Rice), should be alive today… We told a simple truth that we continue to tell today, that Black Lives Matter.” — DeRay Mckesson
DeRay Mckesson, civil rights activist and supporter of #BlackLivesMatter received an Honorary Degree from The New School in 2016. Watch his powerful commencement speech:
In the fall of 2017, Maya Wiley, University Professor and MSNBC Legal Analyst, shared an intimate, half-hour conversation with a group of students to discuss race in the United States — and why it matters today.
“It is a beautiful thing to be on fire for justice.” — Cornel West and Chris Hedges in conversation
Dr. Cornel West, public intellectual, philosopher, political activist and author, discussed the Black Lives Matter movement, along with many other topics, with Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and acclaimed author.
“Film, for me, was always a tool. It was a mode of expression that could change something. I knew the impact, I knew it was important for people from my country or from the third world to see their stories; it was important to know their stories. That was the angle for me to go into film, not because I wanted to make big films or work with actors, but because film can have an impact and is a way to make truth of ideas.” — Raoul Peck
Award winning filmmaker and political activist Raoul Peck visited The New School in 2019 during his time as the School of Media Studies’ Hirshon Artist in Residence. During that time, he held a public screening featuring clips from his films and had a discussion with Michelle Materre, Director of the Media Management Program, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Film, and curator of Creatively Speaking, an acclaimed film series highlighting independent films by people of color. Watch their conversation:
Using choreography, evocative costuming, and taped video interviews, the Cotton Series, a multimedia performance project created by artist Havanna Fisher (BFA in Fashion Design & BA Liberal Arts ’14), explores black women’s experience in the U.S., as well as their relationships with food, black men, family, community, love, and history. Thoughtful, unsparing, and yet full of hope, Havanna and her collaborators show the ways in which black women have had to exist in this country in the past and present, while still envisioning a brighter future.
On February 6, 1964, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. took the stage at The New School. His appearance marked the start of the American Race Crisis Lecture Series, a for-credit lecture series bringing 16 luminaries of the American Civil Rights Movement together to discuss issues of social justice, integration, and equal access to education. But in time, the talks were forgotten, and the reel-to-reel recordings, press materials, and behind-the-scenes documents sat hidden in the inventories of The New School’s archives. Fifty years later, in February 2014, The New School partnered with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to present Voices of Crisis, a month-long exhibition and series public programs to commemorate the original lecture series and reflect on the impact of the civil rights movement then and now.
In the spring of 2018, The New School’s Bachelors Program for Adults and Transfer Students partnered with Project1voice and hosted Words of Change: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the New School. The event focused on the text and themes from his speech that bear a striking similarity to modern-day events, and utilized six artistic disciplines — music, theater, dance, film, photography and visual art — to memorialize Dr. King and his legacy of hope and inspiration. Watch it here:
Looking for more lectures, classes, and panels about race and social justice? Head over to our YouTube channel where we’ve created a playlist of videos to continue the conversation.
