Held every February during Black History Month, the conference brings internationally renowned scholars to campus to present their work and engage with faculty, staff, students, alumni and Twin Cities residents. It seeks to highlight the links between scholarship, activism and civic engagement.
Each year a different theme is selected based on pertinent issues.
2018 Conference
Yuichiro Onishi – “Transpacific Antiracism: Afro-Asian Solidarity in 20th Century Black America, Japan, and Okinawa”
2017 Conference
Professor Clayborne Carson, Professor Duchess Harris, Niara Williams, and Carl Eller – Black History Month Panel Discussion
2016 Conference
Professor Karin Aguilar-San Juan – Vietnam Anti-War Movement Symposium
2015 Conference
Christina Greer – “Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream: A Discussion of Black Ethnics”
2014 Conference
Laura Kina and Ralina L Joseph – “Mixed Race America: Identities and Culture.”
2013 Conference
Psyche Williams-Forson – “Alternatives in a Changing Food World.”
2012 Conference
Dr. Julianne Malveaux – “Economic Justice in the 21st Century.”
2011 Conference
Ruth Wilson Gilmore – “The World in Crisis: What Is to Be Done?”
2010 Conference
Pedro Noguera – “Challenging Racial Inequality in Our Schools.”
2009 Conference
Cheryl I. Harris and David Roediger – “Whiteness in the Age of Obama.”
2008 Conference
Harriet A. Washington – “Racism in the Name of Science.”
2007 Conference
Dr. Robin D.G. Kelley – “Visualizing Race: Three Episodes.”
2006 Conference
David Naguib Pellow – “The Movement for Global Environmental Justice and Human Rights.”
2005 Conference
Dr. Joy James – “African Americans and the Prison Industrial Complex”
2004 Conference
Kathleen Cleaver – “Fifty Years Since Brown V. Board of Education: Where Are We Now?”
2003 Conference
Paul Carter Harrison – “Representing Blackness: From the Black Arts Movement of the Sixties to the Present”
2002 Conference
Dr. James S. Jackson – “The Psychology of Being Black in Twenty-First Century America”
2001 Conference
Dr. Manning Marable and Distinguished Lecturer: Quincy Troupe – “The Politics of Writing Black”
2000 Conference
Hortense Spillers – Inaugural Lecture