After the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013 and a resurgence of African American political activism throughout the country, a host of issues around race and representation have assumed a new significance. Against this backdrop, this two-day conference assembles a number of distinguished scholars, writers, critics, and artists for a series of conversations over five panels exploring the reverberations of these issues in American politics, intellectual life, and the arts.

“Reflections on the New Jim Crow” examines the racial politics of crime and punishment and assesses the political trajectory of the issues of mass incarceration as well as the legacy of the war on drugs and local policing initiatives. The panel features James Forman, Jr., Clinical Professor of Law at Yale Law School; Elizabeth Hinton, associate professor of history and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America (Harvard University Press); and Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. The panel is moderated by author and journalist Eyal Press.

3:30 PM

Reflections on the New Jim Crow
James Forman, Jr. (Yale University Law School)
Elizabeth Hinton (Harvard University)
Vincent Warren (Executive Director, Center for Constitutional Rights)
Moderated by Eyal Press, The Nation

“From MLK to BLM: A Genealogy of Civil Rights Protest” assesses the origins of the Black Lives Matter movement and contextualizes its place—and uniqueness—in the history of civil-rights activism. The panel features Jelani Cobb, correspondent for The New Yorker and associate professor of history, University of Connecticut; N.B.D. Connolly, visiting associate professor of social and cultural analysis and history, NYU, and author of A World More Concrete: Real Estate and the Remaking of Jim Crow South Florida; and Thomas Sugrue, professor of social and cultural analysis and history, NYU, and author ofSweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North.

5:00 PM

From MLK to BLM: A Genealogy of Civil Rights Protest
Jelani Cobb (University of Connecticut, New Yorker)
N.B.D. Connolly (New York University)
Thomas Sugrue (New York University)

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