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ABOUT THIS EVENT

FREE

September 15th, 7:00 - 8:30pm CST

Race & Democracy: America is Always Changing, But America Never Changes

America’s great promise of equality has always rung hollow in the ears of Black Americans. Today, more than 60 years after the civil rights movement, Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr. says the situation is equally dire — and yet, the promise still lives. Drawing from his landmark book, Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul and his New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, Dr. Glaude presents a picture of race and democracy that is colored by current events and framed by African American history. Bearing witness to the difficult truth in our country today, Dr. Glaude lays bare the tangled web of race, trauma and memory, and what we all must ask of ourselves in order to call forth a new America.

Scholar Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr.

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America, and his most recent, the New York Times bestseller, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own, takes a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy. In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s complexities, vulnerabilities and hope into full view. Hope that is, in one of his favorite quotes from W.E.B. Du Bois, "not hopeless, but a bit unhopeful."

Moderator Dr. Hamzat A. Koriko

Hamzat is the Chair of the North Dakota New American Foreign-Born Immigrant Advisory Board. With a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations, he teaches Research Scholars in the Honors Programs at the University of North Dakota. As a playwright, he wrote, among others, L’ombre de nuit, Quand L’oiseau S’envole. He worked as an actor and director in France and Togo, crossing paths with Robert Wilson. He is the CEO of Kori-ko, LLC and Kori Art and serves as the Director of Praxis Africa. In addition, he is the Community Outreach Specialist for the City of Grand Forks. He speaks multiple languages and is a 2021 NEA Translation Fellowships recipient.

HND VALUE STATEMENT

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this {article, book, exhibition, film, program, database, report, Web resource}, do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota.

However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally.

Therefore, our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University.

To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.

Humanities North Dakota classes and events are funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities