Social Justice Month: "Race, Memorialization and Legacy"

Featured guest speaker Calvin White Jr. will join a panel discussion with Roger Williams University professors Julian Bonder, Autumn Quezada-Grant and Aaron Allen. Sponsored by the RWU Office of the President, RWU Chief Diversity Officer, Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Education, and the RWU Department of History and American Studies.

Dr. Calvin White Jr. is chair of the Department of History at the University of Arkansas. and previously served as director of the African and African American Studies Program. Dr. White, received his Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi and his area of focuses are the U.S. South, with a concentration on the African American experience, and he also explores the ways that religion, music, and other cultural variables influenced the development of black identity in the Arkansas and Mississippi Delta.

A professor of Architecture at Roger Williams University, Julian Bonder is an award-winning architect dedicated to work on memory, monuments and public space often working outside the traditional boundaries of architecture. Born in New York, Professor Bonder grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and received architecture degrees from Universidad de Buenos Aires and Harvard University. His Cambridge-based firm, Wodiczko + Bonder, designed the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery in Nantes, France, which opened to public acclaim and received praise from the Prime Minister of France.

Dr. Autumn Quezada-Grant is an Associate Professor of Latin American History at Roger Williams University. Professor Quezada-Grant, a native of Louisiana, received her Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi, where she studied issues of rights struggles, race, ethnicity and the Atlantic World. She has published on Indigenous rights struggles in Mexico and currently teaches and researches on social justice issues related to race and equality in the Dominican Republic.

Dr. Aaron Allen, Assistant Professor of American Studies at Roger Williams University. Dr. Allen a native of California received his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland and specializes in race studies, particularly issues connected to bi-racial and multi-cultural identities.