At Brown University, experts on Thursday will focus on black communities and the events following the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Speakers include Glenn Loury, a Brown professor of economics; Khalil Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Lisa Miller, associate professor of political science at Rutgers University; and Tricia Rose, a professor and director of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown. The discussion starts at 4 p.m. at the Watson Institute on Thayer Street.
Also on Thursday, history professor Marcia Chatelain will talk about how children shaped the Civil Rights movement at the Aldrich House on Benevolent Street in Providence.
The 6:30 p.m. lecture, “She was Fighting for her Father’s Rights: The Role of Children in African American Freedom Struggles,” is part of a series sponsored by the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Roots Cultural Center, the Rhode Island Black Heritage Society, the Newport Historical Society, the John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage and the Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice.
"We want to provide a forum for people to learn about issues of race and freedom in the past and discuss what that means for our communities today," said Elyssa Tardif, director of the Newell D. Goff Center for Education and Public Programs.
Finally, Roger Williams University will sponsor a day-long symposium called "Sounding the Alarm on Mass Incarceration - Moving Beyond the Problem and Toward Solutions," on March 27 at the Roger Williams University School of Law in Bristol. Space is limited and registration is required.
The symposium, which starts at 8:45 a.m. features more than 20 speakers and moderators. It will "take a hard look at prison and probation in Rhode Island, its cost to taxpayers and its disproportionate impact on our African American and Latino citizens," said retired Superior Court Judge Judith C. Savage.
"We hope the symposium will be a catalyst for greater justice."