Equality Re=Imagined/Friday, February 6th, 2015 at Yale University for a day of intellectual exchange and agenda-setting during three panels and a keynote address.

Fifty years after the nation embarked on one of its most extensive suffrage expansions, the Voting Rights Act; and in a time when many of its key provisions have been delimited; and as black and brown struggle for water in Detroit, personhood in Ferguson, to vote in many precincts, and for a legal status all over the land; we will convene to consider the prospects for minority flourishing, inclusion and equality in our nation, in our time.

We will convene on the morning of Friday, February 6th, 2015 at Yale University for a day of intellectual exchange and agenda-setting during three panels and a keynote address.  The first panel will address the question of racial equality from the perspective of political life.  Lyndon Johnson, in signing the Act, wrote that “the vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men.” How should we theorize and respond to new barriers to minority voice, representation, and incorporation? The second panel will consider monetary crises and capital formation in minority communities from wealth inequalities, predatory lending and housing segregation, to credit markets and decent jobs with livable wages. The third panel will consider what for Johnson was a metaphor, but is now the civil rights issue of our time – punishment and surveillance of minority communities.  Will Ferguson be, as one scholar has written recently, a “moment or a movement?”

Please join us as we consider reform-minded proposals and prospects. How might we envision reducing racial inequality for the next generation?  What are some innovative conceptions, reforms, ideas, and coalitions to consider?  What are the possibilities of cross-racial coalitions and movements?  This is no ordinary task; we have invited a mix of academic experts, journalists, organizers, and advocates to weigh in on these core questions.

This event is open to Yale faculty and students as well as the staffs of New Haven advocacy organizations, journalists, and city residents.  Seating is limited and first-come-first-serve.  To help us in our planning, we ask that you RSVP your attendance by registering at http://isps.yale.edu/form/equality-re-imagined-registration

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Vesla M. Weaver
Assistant Professor of African-American Studies and Political Science
Yale University
Institution for Social and Policy Studies
77 Prospect Street
PO Box 208209
New Haven, CT 06520
vesla.weaver@yale.edu
(203) 432-3237
veslaweaver.wordpress.com