Dr. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, author and assistant professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, will present the keynote address for the 2019 University of Southern Indiana Nelson Mandela Social Justice Day at 6 p.m. Tuesday, February 26 in the USI Performance Center. The presentation will be free and open to the public.
Taylor is a widely sought after public speaker and writer. In 2016, she was named one of the 100 most influential African Americans in the United States by The Root. She has been appointed as a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians for 2018-19, and the Charles H. McIlwain University Preceptor at Princeton University for 2018-21. Her writing has been published in the New York Times; the Los Angeles Times; Boston Review; Paris Review; Guardian; The Nation; Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society; Jacobin and beyond.
Taylor’s research focuses on race and public policy, including American housing policies. She is the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, which won the Lannan Cultural Freedom Award for an Especially Notable Book in 2016. She is also the editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective, which won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ nonfiction in 2018. Her third book, Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s, is forthcoming from University of North Carolina Press. Taylor holds a doctoral degree in African American Studies from Northwestern University.
The keynote address is the culmination of a full day of activities meant to raise dialogue at USI around current issues of human and civil rights, public service, and activism. All events are open to the public as space is available. A full list of activities will be published on the USI website at USI.edu/liberal-arts/special-programs/mandela-social-justice-day/ when finalized. Previous Mandela Day keynote speakers include Tia Oso, Dr. Cornel West (who also serves as a professor emeritus at Princeton University), and Tim Wise.
This event is sponsored by the Mandela Social Justice Committee, the USI Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Nursing and Health Professions, the Pott College of Science, Engineering, and Education, Gender Studies, the Multicultural Center, the Counseling Center, the Office of Housing and Residence Life, the Evansville Public Library, and the Evansville African American Museum. For more information, go to USI.edu/liberal-arts/special-programs/mandela-social-justice-day/ or contact Dr. Sakina Hughes, assistant professor of history and chair of the Mandela Social Justice Committee, at shughes1@usi.edu.
