Reflecting on the 13th Amendment, 150 Years Later

BRISTOL, R.I. – With racial tensions heightened across the U.S. and public discourse trending toward issues of equality nationwide, Roger Williams University will host events throughout the fall semester and continue its series to mark the 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment and to reflect critically on the current state of race relations in America.

Panel discussions, film screenings and guest lecturers will provide myriad opportunities for the community to engage in informed dialogue around the amendment ratified in December 1865 that abolished slavery in America and charted a new course for the nation. The “150 Years Later: The 13th Amendment and Race in America” series will culminate in a President’s Distinguished Speakers Series keynote featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson.

All events are open to the public.

• Consitution Day Panel Discussion: “Key Constitutional Issues Facing the Supreme Court in 2015”
  Thursday, September 17  •  5:00 pm
  Global Heritage Hall, Room G01
  
  Organized by the Department of Political Science and International Relations, the panel will closely examine the 14th and 15th Amendments and issues related to race in America.

• Presentation an Discussion: Author and Historian Michael Vorenberg
  Tuesday, October 6  •  5:00 pm

  School of Law, Room 283
  
  Michael Vorenberg is an associate professor of history at Brown University and the author of "Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery and the Thirteenth Amendment" (2001). Sponsored by the Office of the President and the Office of the Provost.
   
• Social Justice Week
  Monday, October 12 to Tuesday, October 20
  
  Social Justice Week will feature a number of events focused on this year’s theme, “Intersections of Social Justice.” Details will be posted on the Department of History and American Studies website as events are finalized.

• Multicultural Film Series: “Selma” (2014)
  Monday, October 19  •  7:30 pm

  School of Engineering, Room 124
  
  A chronicle of Martin Luther King’s campaign to secure equal voting rights via an epic march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965.

• Presentation: The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project
  Wednesday, October 28  •  6:00 pm

  School of Architecture, Room 132
  
  Featuring director Ann Chinn and activist Emily Kugler of the Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project, which commemorates the nearly 2 million Africans who perished in the Middle Passage of the trans-Atlantic human trade. Sponsored by the Office of the President.
   
• Exhibition: “Freedom Journey 1965”
  Opening in November at the Providence Public Library
  
  The University and the Providence Public Library are collaborating to display this New-York Historical Society exhibit, which features the stunning and historic photos of Stephen Somerstein, who documented the Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March as a college student in 1965. Specific dates will be posted to the web upon confirmation.
   
• Panel Discussion: “The 13th Amendment in American Legal and Political History”
  Thursday, November 5  •  6:00 pm
  
Feinstein College of Arts and Sciences, Room 157
  
  Featuring Jared Goldstein, distinguished research professor of law; Charlotte Carrington-Farmer, assistant professor of history; and Annika Hagley, assistant professor of political science.

• President’s Distinguished Speakers Series: Journalist Isabel Wilkerson
  Thursday, December 3  •  7:00 pm
  Campus Recreation Center Field House
  
  Isabel Wilkerson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of The Warmth of Other Suns (2011), which chronicles the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South in search of better lives.