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. Charles M. Payne
Framing a New Conversation about the Achievement and Development of Black Youth
Charles M. Payne is one of the nation’s most prominent scholars of the study of urban school reform and social inequality. A sociologist by training, his work spans many disciplines. He has written an award-winning history of the civil rights movement and authored some of the most provocative and comprehensive research studies on urban schools. Dr. Payne is the Frank P. Hixon Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago.
March 18 : Education for Liberation, Part I – Rationale
4:00-6:00 pm., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
March 19: Education for Liberation, Part II--Teaching the Black Freedom Struggle
4:00-6:00 p.m., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
April 6 : Supporting the Achievement and Development of Black Boys
4:00-6:00 p.m., Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, 300 The Fenway
April 7 : The Power of Social Support in the Achievement and Development of Black and Latino Youth
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.
Forthcoming: Another Kind of Public Education: Race, Schools, the Media, and Democratic Possibilities by Patricia Hill Collins
In this fiercely intelligent yet accessible book, Collins looks at the landscape of young people's lives and of our public schools from the perspective of a sophisticated scholar of race. She shows us how public education is intimately entwined with and influenced by the media and by the continuing influence of institutional racism. Drawing examples from schools and the workplace, she explains the dynamics of institutional racism in a post-Civil Rights society in uncommonly clear and vivid ways. And she maps out the ways we all can fight it. She explores the ways that global media use images of young people to sell things and constrain their public identities, arguing that media literacy must be a key component of public education in the twenty-first century.(More)
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)
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