All Events
Race Matters Series
Unbreakable Resolve: Building Free-Dem Foundations in New Orleans
Jerome Morgan and Robert Jones
MCC Theater
Jerome Morgan and Robert Jones will make a powerful presentation about mass incarceration in New Orleans and their efforts to rescue young people from its grasp through mentoring and community development projects.
Morgan and Jones spent more than forty years combined in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola before they were exonerated and released. While in prison, at a time when it appeared they had no real chance to be free, they made a pact to one day reunite in New Orleans to set up a cooperative business and mentoring program that would serve young people in danger of being swept into jails and prisons. They enrolled in prison education programs, studied law, and learned trades. With the help of allies outside prison walls they won their freedom. Today Morgan and Jones run the Free-Dem Foundations, a non-profit community-based youth organization in New Orleans that fulfills the vision they created while incarcerated. Morgan works as the Dean of School Culture at Rooted School in New Orleans while Jones serves as Director of Community Outreach and Lead Client Advocate at Orleans Public Defenders. Morgan is also the Dean of School Culture at Rooted School.
Their presentation will cover their own personal experiences with incarceration that they have delineated in their co-authored book (with Daniel Rideau) Unbreakable Resolve as well as a report on the curriculum, mentoring, business start-up, and apprenticeship programs they are implementing in the work of the Free-Dem Foundations. Morgan will speak about his participation in the collectively written book Go To Jail, an archive of twenty years of writing by public school students and teachers, people incarcerated in prisons, academics, attorneys, and their community allies.
Conscious Conversations Series
Understanding the Sacred: Listening to Indigenous People and Land
Mauna Kea Protectors, Uprooted and Rising, and Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation
Online
Under the leadership of Chancellor Yang, the University of California has invested millions of dollars into the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) despite the protest of Native Hawaiians. Join the MCC in learning from the Mauna Kea Protectors, Uprooted and Rising, and Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation who will lead a discussion and Q&A on the University of California and it’s ongoing legacy of land acquisition. Engage with the knowledge shared by Native elders, grassroots leaders, and activists; and learn how you can support Indigenous sovereignty in our local communities and on-campus.
Co-sponsor: Mauna Kea Protectors
Photo credit: @kapzphotography
Conscious Conversations Series
Undocumented & Surviving the Pandemic: A Conversation with Organizers and Activists
Online
Under the Obama, Trump and now Biden administrations the treatment of immigrants has become increasingly violent; the past several decades have witnessed a boom in the role of the carceral state in controlling and containing immigrant communities. In addition, the global pandemic has exacerbated unethical and inhumane practices by ICE and in detention centers. Join UCSB’s MultiCultural Center in a panel discussion and Q&A with community and campus organizers on the experiences of undocumented folks in this time, and how documented comrades can best serve as co-conspirators to the undocu community.
Unlearning Academic Ableism
Angela M. Carter and Rui Rui Bleifuss
Online Zoom - REGISTRATION REQUIRED AT SHORELINE
Disability Justice is currently trending on social media and within larger social justice movement spaces. But what does disability justice mean for college students? This interactive Zoom workshop hosted by the MCC and CODE will begin with a brief overview of disability as an intersectional identity and experience. Next, participants will learn how to utilize the principles of Disability Justice to recognize and disrupt academic ableism. Lastly, there will be ample time to ask questions and engage in discussion.
Guest Bios:
As a Ronald E. McNair scholar, Angela M. Carter (she/her) became a first-generation college graduate in 2009 when she earned her BA in English from Truman State University. Dr. Carter completed her Ph.D. in Feminist Studies at the University of Minnesota in 2019. She has worked in various capacities over the last 20 years teaching, researching, and advocating, around experiences of injustice and inequity in higher education. Currently, she is organizing with other disabled Minnesotans to form a grassroots community organization, named AmplifyMN: A Disability Justice Collective. Angela identifies as a white anti-racist, multiply-disabled, rural queer, feminist.
Rui Rui Bleifuss (she/her) is a Chinese American disability activist from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and an intern with AmplifyMN: A Disability Justice Collective. Currently, Rui Rui is a junior at Davidson College where she is pursuing a major in Disability Studies and a minor in Chinese Studies. Outside of her work, Rui Rui loves listening to podcasts, baking, and spending time with her service dog, Yeti.
Co-Sponsor: A.S. CODE
REGISTRATION REQUIRED AT SHORELINE
