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The AFAM Salon: What the Trayvon Martin case means for us

Hosts: Winnifred Brown-Glaude and Piper Kendrix Williams

The February 26 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has provoked visceral responses across the US and around the world, even as the focus of the case turns from protest’s marches to prosecutorial maneuvers. In this episode of the AFAM Salon, TCNJ professors Winnifred Brown-Glaude and Piper Kendrix Williams will lead a community conversation about the issues that this and other recent killings of unarmed black men at the hands of either police or people taking the law into their own hands. The chat will take place in this space April 18, from 8-9 PM EST.

Among other issues, we’ll discuss:

• “The talk” that many parents of color have with their sons about how to interact with police and other authority figures.
• The use of the “violence card” in the public debate about race and crime
• The rise of “stand your ground” laws,reportedly  promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council and the NRA

The AFAM Salon is an occasional series of online chats on topical issues, led by members of the Department of African American Studies,

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Senegal's president Abdoulaye Wade has incited protests by standing for a third term. By Roosewelt Pinheiro/ via Wikimedia Commons

This online chat took place about the election crisis in Senegal took place Feb. 25, 2012 from 11 am-noon  EST. It was moderated by TCNJ professors Dr. Moussa Sow and Dr. Marla Jaksch. Enjoy the archived chat and add your comments below.

Senegal, long considered one of Africa’s most stable democracies has been rocked by protests against the effort of 85-year-old incumbent Abdoulaye Wade to win a third term as President in elections scheduled for Sunday. The outcome of this weekend’s events could have grave implications not only for that country, but also for the United States’ relationship with a key ally in the region. More background on the election crisis is here:http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/02/2012218202131269337.html and information about Senegal and its relationship to the US is here:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2862.htm.

This online chat is the first offering of the AFAM Salon, an online chat series hosted by TCNJ’s African American Studies that will serve as a discussion forum about topical issues, scholarship and enduring questions related to Africa and its Diaspora.

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Courtesy of Robert P. Moses

Dr. Robert P. Moses, who played a key role in the drive for voting rights in the 1960s and who has been a leading voice for culturally responsive mathematics education since the 1980s, will spend the day at TCNJ Feb. 2, 2012. He will address the campus community at 4 pm in the Mayo Concert Hall of the Music Building. The event is free and open to the public.

As the former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s (SNCC) Mississippi Project in the 1960s, an architect of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, the recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, and a Harvard Philosophy PhD, Dr. Moses has a wealth of experience in civil and human rights. Since the 1980s, Dr. Moses has converted those experiences into a program of innovative approaches to education for underserved and distressed communities in the United States and abroad. Dr. Moses’s efforts resulted in the creation of the Algebra Project in 1982, an initiative designed to create “sustainable, student centered models” for school reform that builds “coalitions of stakeholders within local communities, particularly underserved” populations. (Algebra Project history)

The Algebra Project, which emphasizes math skills and pedagogy, has gained national recognition as a community-based,

Robert Moses during the Freedom Summer campaign

bottom-up approach that is innovative and sensitive to vagaries of state and local budgets. Dr. Moses has captured many of the ideas for the Algebra Project in his acclaimed 2001 co-authored book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project that Princeton Professor, Dr. Cornel West, described as “the definitive book on one of the most important projects of youth empowerment and citizenship of our time.” His articles on improving mathematics education have appeared in such influential journals as Social Policy, Phi Delta Kappan, and the Journal of Mathematical Behavior.

Dr. Moses’s presentation will invite the TCNJ community, local citizens, and state leaders to discuss the prevailing challenges to education and consider creative solutions that draw upon our strengths.

“Today, I want to argue, the most urgent issue affecting poor people and people of color is economic access. In today’s world, economic access and full citizenship depend crucially on math and science literacy. I believe the absence of math literacy in urban and rural communities throughout this country is an issue as urgent as the lack of registered Black voters in Mississippi in 1961″

Robert P. Moses, Radical Equations: civil rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project, Beacon Press, 2001

Sponsors: Department of African American Studies, Black Student Union, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, School of Science, School of Education, Department of Mathematics, Department of Women and Gender Studies, Allen Dawley Center for the Study of Social Justice, Committee for Cultural and Intellectual Community. Supported by Student Activities Funds.

Selected Learning Resources for Dr. Moses, Freedom Summer and the Algebra Project

Books

(Note: Dr. Moses’ books will be on sale in the TCNJ bookstore. He will sign books at the end of his presentation.

• Robert P. Moses and Charles Cobbb. Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project. Beacon Press, 2001
• Theresa Perry, Robert P. Moses, Ernesto Cortesis, Lisa Delpitis, Joan T. Wynne, eds. Quality Education as a Constitutional Right: Creating a Grass-Roots Movement to Transform Public Schools. Beacon Press, 2010

Websites

• The Algebra Project
• The Robert Moses Archive
• Images of Hate and Hope: Historic Images from Freedom Summer in Newseum’s Collection
• Robert P. Moses speech on Freedom Summerat Stanford University, April 23, 1964
• Civil Rights Movement Veterans Website
• Eyes on the Prize Interview transcripts
• Interactive version of the Alabama Literacy Test created by Scott Hoover, TCNJ alum ’07, as part of the 2004 Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Digital Archive
  

  Videos

  Visionary Project interview, Freedom Summer, Part One
  

  Part Two:
  

  The Algebra Project:

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  How the Algebra Project works

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  Baltimore Algebra Project march for Jobs and Education:

Bridget McManus recieves an award for academic achievement in African-American Studies, October 21, 2011

Dr. Deborah Gray White

On November 30, 2011, Dr. Deborah Gray White, Board of Governors Professor of History at Rutgers University will  deliver the third annual Gloria Harper Dickinson Memorial lecture entitled, “The Personal is Political But Not Entertainment:  A Non-Fiction Look at “The Help.”

White will speak at 4 pm in the Mayo Concert hall at The College of New Jersey.

White’s books include  “Ar’nt I a Woman?  Female Slaves in the Plantation South”, and “Too Heavy a Load:  Black Women in Defense of Themselves, 1894 -1994.”

White is also member of the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), which issued an open statement in the summer of 201i criticizing the depiction of black domestic workers in the popular book and film, The Help. Dr. White’s talk will engage members of the TCNJ community in a discussion on the realities of African American women and their history of domestic labor and its Hollywood portrayal. It will allow students an opportunity to critically think about race, stereotypes and labor in US history, popular culture and media.

The Gloria Harper Dickinson Memorial lecture was established in 2009 as a tribute to the life and work of Dr. Gloria Harper Dickinson, past chair and professor of African American Studies at The College of New Jersey, former president of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH). This event is co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies,  the Department of Women and Gender Studies, TCNJ Office of Academic Affairs, the Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the TCNJ Black Student Union.