David W. Blight, "'My Voice, My Pen, My Vote': Frederick Douglass and American Democracy"
2021 American Democracy Lecture
The Messiah University American Democracy Lecture: Sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities and the Department of Politics and International Relations.
Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David Blight is the Sterling Professor of History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. He is the author or editor of a dozen books, including American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era; and Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory; and annotated editions of Douglass’s first two autobiographies. He has worked on Douglass much of his professional life, and been awarded the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, among others.
Dr. Jacqueline Jones Royster, “Troubling the Narratives of a Democratic Nation: Whose Stories Are These?"
2021 Humanties Symposium Keynote Lecture
Dr. Jacqueline Jones Royster, Professor Emerita at Georgia Institute of Technology and at The Ohio State University, former Dean of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts and Ivan Allen Jr. Dean’s Chair in Liberal Arts and Technology (2010-2019).
This presentation focuses on African American women as rightful participants in the narratives of nation in the United States of America. Suggesting a critical need for a paradigmatic shift in our analytical and interpretive frameworks for socio-political impact and consequence, attention is drawn to nineteenth century activist Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, an under sung American hero from Boston, Massachusetts.
Anthony Ray Hinton, “Surviving Criminal Justice In America”
2020 Humanties Symposium Keynote Lecture
Author of the the best selling book, “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row,” Anthony Ray Hinton spent30 years on death row after being wrongly convicted of two 1985 murders in Alabama. Since his release on April 3, 2015, Hinton has become an advocate for reform in America’s criminal justice system. He now serves as the community educator for the Equal Justice Initiative, the same nonprofit organization that helped him regain his freedom.
Marian Wright Edelman, “Towards the Common Good: Ending Child Poverty in the U.S.”
2019 Humanties Symposium Keynote Lecture
Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund, has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life. A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi
Bar and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi. She has received more than 100 honorary degrees and many awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize; the Heinz Award; a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian award. In addition, she received the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award for her writings, which include “Families in Peril: An Agenda for Social Change,” “The Measure of Our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours,” “Lanterns: A Memoir of Mentors,” “I’m Your Child, God: Prayers for Our Children,” “I Can Make a Difference: A Treasury to Inspire Our Children” and “The Sea Is So Wide and My Boat Is So Small: Charting a Course for the Next Generation.
Edwdige Danticat, "Home as Grief, Home as Us"
2018 Humanties Symposium Keynote Lecture
Celebrated author and activist, Edwidge Danticat’s books include “Breath, Eyes, Memory,” an Oprah’s Book Club selection; “Krik? Krak!,” a National Book Award finalist; “The Farming of Bones,” an American Book Award winner; and “The Dew Breaker.” Her memoir, “Brother, I’m Dying,” was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. She is the editor of several books including, “The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States.” She has written six books for young adults and children, as well as a travel narrative. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow and the 2016 recipient of the Toni Morrison Award.
Taylor Branch , "King's Dream for Justice: Then and Now"
2017 American Democracy Lecture
The Messiah College American Democracy Lecture: Sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities and the Department of Politics and International Relations.
American Democracy Lecture Winner of the 1999 National Humanities Medal and recipient of both a Guggenheim and a MacArthur Fellowship, Taylor Branch is an American author and historian best known for his landmark narrative history of the civil rights era, “America in the King Years.” The trilogy’s first book, “Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63,” won the Pulitzer Prize and numerous other awards in 1989. Two successive volumes also gained critical and popular success: “Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65,” and “At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968.” Decades later, all three books remain in demand. Branch returned to civil rights history in his latest book, “The King Years: Historic Moments in the Civil Rights Movement (2013)."
Earl Lewis, "History, Mental Health, and Humor: the Lingering Effects of Slavery and Race"
2016 American Democracy Lecture
The Messiah College American Democracy Lecture: Sponsored by the Center for Public Humanities and the History Department
Earl Lewis became the sixth president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in 2013. Under his guidance, the Foundation has reaffirmed its commitment to the humanities, the arts and higher education by emphasizing the importance of continuity and change. A noted social historian, Lewis has held faculty appointments at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan. He has championed the importance of diversifying the academy, enhancing graduate education, re-visioning the liberal arts, exploring the role of digital tools for learning and connecting universities to their communities. Prior to joining the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation,
Lewis served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of History and African American Studies at Emory University. As provost, Lewis led academic affairs and academic priority setting for the university. A native of Tidewater, Va., Lewis earned an undergraduate degree in history and psychology from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn. and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Minnesota.
Mark Samels, "To Tell a True Story"
2016 Humanities Symposium Keynote Address
Mark Samels is executive producer of “American Experience,” PBS’s flagship history series. Produced by WGBH Boston, “American Experience” is television’s most-watched and longest-running history series. Under Samels’ leadership, the series has been honored with nearly every industry award, including the Peabody, Primetime Emmys, the duPont-Columbia Journalism Award, Writers Guild Awards and Sundance Film Festival Audience and Grand Jury awards. In 2015, the series received its ninth Academy Award nomination for the critically acclaimed “Last Days in Vietnam.”
Dr. Willie Jennings, "Overcoming the Geography of Race"
2015 Religion and Society Lecture
Willie Jennings is Associate Professor of Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. He teaches in the areas of systematic theology, black church and cultural studies. He is the author of The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Yale, 2010).
Dr. Reginald Oduor, "How Africa Can Help America"
Kenyan philosopher and activist, Dr. Reginald Oduor is internationally known for his scholarship in political philosophy, ethics and philosophy of religion. Blind since he was a baby, he is also one of Kenya's leading voices for the rights and inclusion of people with disabilities.
