Events By Quarter
Resilient Love
Black Trans Lives Matter
CeCe McDonald and Elle Hearns
Online
Join the MCC in welcoming CeCe McDonald and Elle Hearns for a virtual conversation moderated by Dr. Omise'eke Tinsley and centering the lives, joys, and strengths of Black trans women.
CeCe McDonald is a transgender activist and revered icon of the LGBTQ community. She captured international recognition in 2011 after surviving a white supremacist and transphobic attack, later receiving a second-degree manslaughter conviction and serving 19 months in prison simply for defending herself.
She has been profiled in Mother Jones, Ebony.com, and Rolling Stone, the latter praising her as “an LGBT folk hero for her story of survival – and for the price she paid for fighting back.” In 2014, The Advocate included her among its annual "40 Under 40” list. That same year, she received the Bayard Rustin Civil Rights Award by the Harvey Milk LGBT Democratic Club. She is the subject of the acclaimed documentary, “FREE CeCe,” produced by transgender actress Laverne Cox. Since her release, she has graced stages across the country where she uses storytelling to articulate the personal and political implications of being both black and trans.
As one of the founders of the Black Excellence Collective and Black Excellence Tour, created with best friend Joshua Allen, she fosters important conversations around mass incarceration, sexuality, and violence. With energy and conviction, she highlights the hope she now fights for – that all LGBTQ people can live their lives free of hate and prejudice and confidently pursue their dreams without fear.
Elle Hearns is an organizer, speaker, strategist, and writer. Elle’s voice as a strategist community organizer and speaker were formed from her upbringing in Columbus, Ohio as a youth organizer. Ms. Elle currently is the Executive Director of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute an organization founded in 2015 that works to create a crucial entry point for Black transgender women to advocate for an end to violence against all trans people through advocacy, transformative organizing, restoration, civil disobedience and direct action. The organization is credited for organizing the first ever National Day of Action for Black Trans Women in response to the murders of Amber Monroe, Kandis Capri, and Elisha Walker and held organized events in multiple cities including New York City, Chicago, and Washington DC. As a speaker Elle has delivered keynotes and talks at Harvard University, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture,The Public Theatre,and for The National Lawyers Guild,Columbia University, Stanford University and NYU.
Co-sponsors: RCSGD, Director of LGBTQ Studies, AS Black Women’s Health Collaborative
Performance
Performance with Fawn Wood
Fawn Wood
Online
Plains Cree/Salish singer Fawn Wood comes from the tradition of Round Dance and Hand Drum music. She was introduced to spiritual songs by her parents and grandparents, singing along with them at Pow-Wows from an early age. Through her music, she shares a deep passion for her community and speaks to the strength of Indigenous women. Fawn won the Hand Drum contest at the Gathering of Nation’s Pow-Wow in 2006, the first woman to do so. Before her work as a solo artist, she and her husband Dallas Waskahat released albums as a duo. The two of them performed at the 11th Annual NAMMY awards and 2010 Aboriginal Peoples Choice Music Awards. Fawn’s latest album is entitled Kikāwiynaw, Plains Cree for “our mother”.
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
Diversity Lecture Series
Black Lives, Indigenous Lives: From Mattering to Thriving
Andrew Jolivette
Online
What can we learn from Black and Indigenous history, activism, and contemporary stewardship efforts in order to transform higher education, health, policing, and other Western institutions? This dialogue will examine and discuss major points of cultural and historic community convergence between Black and Indigenous Peoples with a focus on contemporary movements such as Black Lives Matter and Idle No More and the dismantling of racist statues, images, and mascots. Dr. Andrew Jolivétte will explore what these movements mean for enacting justice interventions and moving towards thrivance circuity, kinship building, self-determination, and abolition as transformational modes of joy production and ceremonial stewardship.
Co sponsors: Office of equity, diversity and inclusion and Office of Equal Opportunity & Discrimination Prevention, RCSGD.
