The Black Student Alliance, Multicultural Student Services at Eastern Mennonite University and the Committee on Diversity and Inclusion invites attendance at two remaining events in celebration of Black History Month.
Feb. 23: Church Service with Cornell William Brooks, 1:30 pm, Mainstage Theater, EMU.
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and BSA will be collaborating for a Sunday church service. Reverend Cornell William Brooks, professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School, will preach.
Feb. 24: Convocation, 10:10 am, Lehman Chapel
Join BSA for a convocation on the theme of Sankofa which reminds us that in order to move forward in the fight for racial justice, we must understand our past. Professor Cornell William Brooks will speak.
More on Cornell William Brooks
Cornell William Brooks is Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Social Justice at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is also Director of The William Monroe Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice at the School’s Center for Public Leadership, and Visiting Professor of the Practice of Prophetic Religion and Public Leadership at Harvard Divinity School. Brooks is the former president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights attorney, and an ordained minister
Brooks was most recently visiting professor of social ethics, law, and justice movements at Boston University’s School of Law and School of Theology. He was a visiting fellow and director of the Campaign and Advocacy Program at the Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics in 2017. Brooks served as the 18th president of the NAACP from 2014 to 2017. Under his leadership, the NAACP secured 12 significant legal victories, including laying the groundwork for the first statewide legal challenge to prison-based gerrymandering. He also reinvigorated the activist social justice heritage of the NAACP, dramatically increasing membership, particularly online and among millennials. Among the many demonstrations from Ferguson to Flint during his tenure, he conceived and led “America’s Journey for Justice” march from Selma, Alabama to Washington, D.C., over 40 days and 1000 miles.
Prior to leading the NAACP, Brooks was president and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, where he led the passage of pioneering criminal justice reform and housing legislation, six bills in less than five years. He also served as senior counsel and acting director of the Office of Communications Business Opportunities at the Federal Communications Commission, executive director of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, and a trial attorney at both the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the U.S. Department of Justice. Brooks served as judicial clerk for the Chief Judge Sam J. Ervin, III, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Brooks holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was a senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and member of the Yale Law and Policy Review, and a Master of Divinity from Boston University’s School of Theology, where he was a Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar. Brooks has a B.A. from Jackson State University. He is the recipient of several honorary doctorates including: Boston University, Drexel University, Saint Peter’s University and Payne Theological Seminary as well as the highest alumni awards from Boston University and Boston University School of Theology. Brooks is a fourth-generation ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Completed events
Feb. 12: Lincoln Homestead Ceremony and Open House. Ceremony from 2-3 p.m. and Open House from 3-6 p.m, 7884 Harpine Highway, Linville, VA.
Visit the homestead of relatives of Abraham Lincoln to learn about and remember the slaves of this homestead. The new owners of the homestead, Eastern Mennonite Seminary professor Sarah Bixler and her husband Ben, said: “We’ve committed ourselves to learn not only about the Lincolns, but about all those who lived and died on this land. And we welcome the community to join us in wrestling with these questions and finding transformative ways to respond.”
Feb. 13: Soul Food Night and Music in the EMU Cafeteria
Feb. 13: African American Read In and Poetry Slam, 7 p.m., Black Box Theater. Join the Black Student Alliance, Multicultural Student Services and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. as we host On the Road Collaborative for an evening of African American literature, poetry and song. Come and share your original, favorite works or just sit back and enjoy the talents of others.
Feb. 20: Town Hall on Race, 7-8:30 a.m. This annual evening event, hosted by Black Student Alliance members, is open only to EMU community members.
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