Race, Education, and Democracy: A Simmons College / Beacon Press Lecture and
Book Series
In the spring of 2006, Beacon Press and Simmons College inaugurated a lecture
and book series that we hope will reinvigorate a crucial national public conversation
on race, education, and democracy. Each year, the series will bring to Boston
prominent public figures to deliver a series of lectures that will become the
basis of a new trade book published by Beacon.
Frederick Douglass, who famously lectured in Boston around the time Beacon
Press was founded, called education the “pathway from slavery to freedom.”
This new series aims to reestablish in the public imagination that historically
felt connection between public education and the possibility of a robust democracy,
against the backdrop of the realities of race today in America. We are delighted
to have Beverly Daniel Tatum launch the series. We look forward to publishing
many equally important books in the seasons to come.
Dr. Patricia Hill Collins
Another Kind of Public Education: Race, the Media, Education, and Democratic
Possibilities
Professor Patricia Hill Collins is Distinguished University Professor
of Sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park and former head
of the Department of African American Studies at the University of Cincinnati.
She is author of several award-winning books, including Black Feminist
Thought, Black Sexual Politics, and From Black Power to
Hip Hop. She is a former classroom school teacher in Boston, and is
currently president of the American Sociological Association.
April 16: Another Kind of Public Education
4:00-6:00 pm., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
April 17: New Racial Realities: Honorary Whiteness, Social Blackness,
and All Points in Between
4:00-6:00 p.m., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
May 28: Somebody’s Watching You: Black Youth and Popular Culture
4:00-6:00 p.m., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
May 29: Critical Education and Democratic Possibilities
4:00-6:00 p.m., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
All lectures will take place at Simmons College, 300 The Fenway, Boston,
and are free and open to the public.
For Directions to the College via car and public transportation, please click
here.
Can We Talk About Race?: And Other Conversations in
an Era of School Resegregation by Beverly Daniel Tatum, Ph.D.
Beverly Daniel Tatum emerged as a major commentator on race in America
in 1997 with "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the
Cafeteria?," a book that changed the way many people think about
racial identity and about the conversation about race in schools. Can
We Talk About Race? is an accessible and engaging analysis of some
of the most resonant issues in American education and race relations.
"Another thoughtful, personal and provocative book that will encourage
discussion about many of the difficult issues still surrounding race in
America-in and out of the classroom." —Marian Wright Edelman,
president, Children's Defense Fund (More)
Forthcoming: No Sacrifice Too Great, based on
the 2007 lecture series from James D. Anderson
Few today know what African Americans have done-and
what they sacrificed-to demand, create, and nourish educational institutions
for themselves and their families through the 20th century. At a time when
unequal educational outcomes are blamed on African Americans not valuing
education, James D. Anderson vividly shows how African Americans have demonstrated
over and over, in the face of huge obstacles, a passionate cultural commitment
to education, and how history should transform the way we think about many
contemporary debates, from resegregation to the "test score gap."
(More)
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