Sep
20
11:30pm
Power of Our Stories Won't Stop: Intergenerational Truth-Telling as Civic Democratic Practice
By Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
Charis celebrates Power of Our Stories Won't Stop: Intergenerational Truth-Telling as Civic Democratic Practice edited by Hellena Moon and Madeleine Moon-Chun. In addition to editor Hellena Moon, other panelists include: Akemi Kochiyama, Allegra Lawrence-Hardy, Andrea Young, Anthony Downer II, Cécile Accilien, Danielle Buhuro, Douglas Henry Daniels, Harvey Dong, and Sig/Sara Giordano. This book--on the power of intergenerational truth-telling as civic democratic practice--was written for high school students. This event is co-sponsored by the Teach for Freedom Collective and The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights. Teach for Freedom Collective is a grassroots group seeking to support a mass movement of educators, students, and communities to develop liberatory educational spaces. The Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights empowers, advocates, educates, and organizes people of African Descent affected by systemic racism in our community. They focus on issues of equity in education, housing, public art and monuments, and the legal system.
Many students of color come to college, frustrated, and asking, "How come we never learned our histories and stories in high school?" The histories of Black, Asian American, Latinx, and LGBTQ students are often elided from high school history teaching and in their textbooks, when, our stories are very much imbricated within the fabric of US history.
The contributors to this anthology share some of their personal narratives and elided histories that we hope can be inspirational for students, educators, and families to discuss together. Our hope is for more stories to be told, written, and discussed. Our country needs truth-telling and civic engagement from people of all ages to make our democracy flourish. This anthology is intergenerational, highlighting the importance of mutual and reciprocal learning-we have much to learn from one another.
ABOUT THE PANEL
Akemi Kochiyama (she/her) is a scholar-activist, community builder, and granddaughter of human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama. Akemi currently serves as the Director of Advancement at Manhattan Country School, a K-8 independent progressive school with a mission-based commitment to equity and social justice in education. She is Co-Director of the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project and Co-Editor of Passing It On: A Memoir by Yuri Kochiyama. A graduate of Spelman College, Akemi is a doctoral candidate in the Ph.D. Program in Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her dissertation, research, and writing focus on the impact of Yuri Kochiyama’s personal and political practice in support of human rights, BIPOC solidarity and multicultural community building on activists, educators, and artists today. Chapter 18: Fighting Racism with Solidarity: #knowyourBIPOChistory
Allegra Lawrence-Hardy (she/her) is co-founder of the largest Black owned law firm on the East Coast. In addition to being a nationally recognized attorney, Allegra has profoundly impacted the lives of those in her community through her leadership and commitment to working for the next generation of leaders. Her extensive community involvement and board leadership extend to many of Atlanta's long-established organizations, including Zoo Atlanta, Alliance Theater, Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta, and Children's Museum of Atlanta, among others, and educational institutions, including St. Anne’s Day School, the Paideia School, her alma mater, Spelman College, and Emory University. Allegra is a graduate of Yale Law School and the recipient of a number of legal distinctions, including Top 100 Georgia Super Lawyers, Top 50 Female Georgia Super Lawyers, Benchmark Litigation Stars, and Best Lawyers in America. Chapter 19: Speaking Up and Speaking Out: Living at Full Volume
Andrea Young (she/her), JD, is the Executive Director of the 22,000 member American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Georgia. She is a life-long advocate for civil and human rights. The ACLU of Georgia is a trusted, ethical, nonpartisan defender of our civil liberties: opposing threats to civil liberties; combating voter suppression; supporting criminal justice reform; protecting freedom of speech, immigrant rights, and women’s rights, especially reproductive freedom. Young is the author of Life Lessons My Mother Taught Me; co-author of Andrew Young and the Making of Modern Atlanta, and co-editor with former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young in An Easy Burden: Civil Rights and the Transformation of America. Young has been recognized as Georgia Trend’s 100 Most Influential Georgians and Atlanta Magazines’ 500 Most Powerful Atlantans. She is a board member of the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. Foreword: Andrea Young, Executive Director, ACLU of GA
Anthony Downer II (he/him) is an abolitionist educator-organizer, Equity Coordinator in City Schools of Decatur, Georgia, Lead Learner of Liberation Learning Lab, and host of dat way: conversations on education and liberation. Anthony taught high school social studies in Atlanta and Gwinnett County. He was raised and resides in Norcross. He is an educational partner to this book project. Chapter 5: can’t stop, won’t stop: The Tradition of Black Education as the Practice of Freedom
Cécile Accilien (she/her) is Professor of French and Francophone Studies at University of Maryland in the School of Language, Literatures and Cultures in the College of Arts and Humanities. Her area of studies are Francophone African and Caribbean Literatures and Cultures and Film & Media Studies. She is the co-editor (with Valerie Orlando) of Teaching Haiti: Strategies for Creating New Narratives (University Press of Florida, 2021) and the co-author (with Krishauna Hines Gaither) of The Antiracism World Language Classroom (Routledge, 2022). Her monograph Bay lodyans: Haitian Popular Film Culture is forthcoming with SUNY Press. She is the 2023 president of the Haitian Studies Association. She has written for Truthout and Latin American Commentator. She is also a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) and Belonging Coach and Consultant. She is co-founder (with Jessica Adams) of Soley Consulting, LLC (www.soleydei.com). Afterword: Teaching and Learning Through Konbit
Danielle Buhuro (she/her) received both her MDiv and DMin from the Chicago Theological Seminary. Reverend Dr. Buhuro is passionate about issues of race, gender, and sexuality. She serves as Executive Director and lead CPE Supervisor of Sankofa CPE Center, LLC. She is also the Director of Movement Chaplaincy for Faith Matters Network. Dr. Buhuro is editor of the book, Spiritual Care in an Age of #BlackLivesMatter: Examining the Spiritual and Prophetic Needs of African Americans Living in a Violent America. She is currently a PhD student studying social media identity, violence, and pastoral theology. Dr. Buhuro has also served on the national board of directors of ACPE: The Standard for Spiritual Care & Education. She facilitates numerous workshops nation-wide on African American Pastoral Care and African-centered psychology. Chapter 15: “Centering” Yourself Before You Log On: Black Girls and Self-Care in the World of Social Media
Douglas Henry Daniels (he/him), PhD, was born in Chicago and received his A.B. in Political Science from the University of Chicago. He received his M.A. and PhD in History from University of California, Berkeley. His first job as a professor was at the University of Texas, Austin, and in 1979, he was hired in Black Studies and History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has published books on Black San Francisco, a biography of saxophonist Lester "Pres" Young, and a history of the Oklahoma City Blue Devils. He is currently completing a history of the Berkeley civil rights movement. Chapter 6: Music, Math, and Malcolm X: My Intellectual Journey of Truth
Harvey Dong (he/him) is a Continuing Lecturer in the Asian American & Asian Diaspora Program at UC Berkeley. In 2016, he received the American Cultures Ronald Takaki Teaching Award and in 2018, the Chancellor's Public Scholar Faculty Fellowship. He is also co-editor and contributor to: Mountain Movers: Student Activism and Emergence of Asian American Studies. UCLA Asian American Studies Center: 2019; and The Power of the People Won’t Stop: Legacy of the TWLF at UC Berkeley. Eastwind Books of Berkeley: 2020). He was also, for 27 years, co-owner of Eastwind Books of Berkeley. Currently, through Eastwind, he is involved in publishing works related to Asian American and Ethnic Studies. Publisher
Hellena Moon (she/her), PhD, is an educator, community volunteer, and parent. She has degrees from Boston College (BA), Harvard University (A.M.), Harvard Divinity (M. Div.), and Emory University (PhD). She is the author of two co-edited books with Dr. Bishop Emmanuel Y. Lartey: Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care: Challenges of Care in a Neoliberal Age (2020); Postcolonial Practices of Care: A Project of Togetherness during COVID-19 and Racial Violence (Wipf & Stock, 2022). She is also the author of Liberalism and Colonial Violence: Charting a New Genealogy of Spiritual Care (Wipf & Stock, 2022). Editor
Sig/Sara Giordano (they/them), PhD, is an activist-scholar working as an Associate Professor at Kennesaw State University specializing in feminist science studies in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. Their areas of interest are the politics and ethics of science with a focus on critical science literacy and the democratization of science. Chapter 3: Are Queers Dangerous? What I Wish I Knew about the Intersections of Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality in High School
This event is free and open to all people, especially to those who have no income or low income right now, but we encourage and appreciate a solidarity donation in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Charis Circle's mission is to foster sustainable feminist communities, work for social justice, and encourage the expression of diverse and marginalized voices. https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/CharisCircle?code=chariscirclepage
Please contact us at [email protected] or 404-524-0304 if you would like ASL interpretation at this event. If you would like to watch the event with live AI captions, you may do so by watching it in Google Chrome and enabling captions: Instructions here. If you have other accessibility needs or if you are someone who has skills in making digital events more accessible please don't hesitate to reach out to [email protected]. We are actively learning the best practices for this technology and we welcome your feedback as we begin this new way of connecting across distances.
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Charis Books and More/Charis Circle
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