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Few would argue with the assertion that racism unfortunately persists in America. However, some do contest the prevalence of racism in the criminal justice system. Syracuse University Law School Professor Paula Johnson shed some light on the issue in a lecture on Nov. 10. She explained that we see and experience racism not only when police officers use excessive and unjustified force against black individuals, but we see it also in the lack of accountability for these assaults and killings. Johnson traces this pattern of ignoring racist killings to the death of Emmett Till in 1955, whose killers were acquitted of all charges.

Italian filmmaker and producer Fred Kuwornu, who’s on campus this week to present three of his documentary films, is also spending time lecturing in some classes. He visited Mary Sisler’s Italian 130 class on Oct. 17.

Minority Access, an organization committed to improving access in education, employment and research, recognized Hamilton as a National Diversity Institution at the 17th National Role Models Conference. Director of Opportunity Programs and Interim Director of Diversity and Inclusion Phyllis Breland, who nominated the College, accepted the award on Oct. 1 at the Washington, D.C., event.

Writer and comedian Jenny Yang began her April 20 lecture by playing a modified game of “Heads Up, 7 Up” to get a sense of the crowd in the Red Pit. She started with general questions like class year, and asked attendees to cover their eyes as she asked more sensitive questions, including financial aid status and families’ academic backgrounds.

In introducing guest speaker Dorceta Taylor, Associate Professor of Government Peter Cannavo referred to her as someone who “utterly changed my thinking on the environmental movement.” Taylor, environmental sociologist at the University of Michigan, was on campus March 3 to give a lecture titled “Food Insecurity, Resistance, and the Quest for Environmental Justice in Communities of Color.”

Dr. Angela Davis, academic and civil rights advocate, spoke in the Chapel on Feb. 26 as part of the Voices of Color Lecture Series. Her discussion focused on how student activists can follow in the footsteps of older generations to develop and execute their own revolutionary ideology and to promote crucial socio-political change. 

“I am a farmer, I grow food, I feed people body and mind,” Karen Washington said by way of introduction at the beginning of her Feb. 16 lecture. Washington, a board member of the New York City Community Garden Coalition and co-founder of the Black Urban Growers organization, spoke on Feb. 16 about the failure of the American food system, the importance of knowing where food comes from, and the intersections of food justice, racism and socioeconomic inequality.

New York City urban gardener Karen Washington will present a lecture titled “Community Gardening and Social Justice” on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 4:15 p.m., in the Red Pit, KJ. The lecture is sponsored by the Days-Massolo Center and is free and open to the public.

Claudia Rankine, award-winning poet and essayist, read from her nationally acclaimed book, Citizen: An American Lyric, in the Chapel on Feb.  8. This work is a collection of stories conveyed mainly as prose poems and mixed media images.  Rankine explained that she had asked her friends to tell her a story about a time “where you were doing something ordinary […] and suddenly somebody said something that reduced you to your race” in order to explore the “white supremacist foundations inside this culture.

In celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the Days-Massolo Center hosted its annual community dinner. This year, attendees were treated to live a jazz ensemble led by Professor of Music Michael Woods and listened to speaker Jennicet Gutiérrez, a trans-liberator activist, before breaking into round table discussions on the topic of select MLK quotes. The event was the first in the DMC’s spring series, “After the Anger, Can You?”