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Series on Anti-Racism

Dr. Marcia Chatelaine
What can I do to be "anti-racist"? How can I be an effective ally for Black Lives at this moment? What are the current protests rooted in?

Whether these are questions you've wrestled with before or are coming to for the first time amidst the explosive energy of the moment, these are discussions we all can be having with our families and communities with honesty and openness. This moment is pivotal in shifting our collective focus on how we learn from and grow in this moment individually and collectively.

In partnership with MoveOn, NARAL, PCCC, Indivisible, NextGen, UltraViolet, a collective of progressive organizations are launching a livestream event series to discuss the political and cultural significance of the Black lives protests. The series will focus on educating and organizing our memberships to be stronger allies and fully embrace a stance of anti-racism.

Charlene Carruthers
Sign up here to be notified of all trainings in this anti-racism series.

The first event will be held Thursday, June 11, 2020, 5 p.m.-6:15 p.m. ET and will be built around telling the story of the protests, why the current anger being expressed is justified, and the role of police violence in the current landscape.

Marcia Chatelain, Ph.D., will discuss this moment from a historical perspective; Charlene Carruthers to speak on the nature of the protests themselves; and Rashad Robinson from Color of Change to discuss systemic racism in our current state of over-policing. The event also features a roundtable conversation led by MoveOn's Reggie Hubbard on where we go from here.

Dr. Marcia Chatelain is the Provost's Distinguished Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. She is a scholar of African-American life and culture. Her first book South Side Girls: Growing up in the Great Migration (Duke University Press, 2015) reimagined the mass exodus of black Southerners to the urban North from the perspective of girls and teenage women. Her latest book, Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America examines the intersection of the post-1968 civil rights struggle and the rise of fast food industry.

Charlene A. Carruthers is a Black, queer feminist community organizer and writer with over 15 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. As the founding national director of BYP100 (Black Youth Project 100), she has worked alongside hundreds of young Black activists to build a national base of activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people.

Rashad Robinson
Rashad Robinson is President of Color Of Change, a leading online racial justice organization. Driven by 1.7 million members working to build political and cultural power for Black communities, Color Of Change is creating a more human and less hostile world for all people in America. Color Of Change uses an innovative combination of technology, research, media savvy and local community engagement to build powerful movements and change the industries that affect Black people’s lives: in Silicon Valley, Hollywood, Wall Street, Washington, prosecutor offices, capitol hills and city halls around the country.Rashad has led the organization in developing cutting-edge strategies to accelerate reform in the criminal justice system and win justice for its victims, increase electoral participation, cut off corporate support for right-wing organizations, and change the representation of Black people and social issues in news and entertainment media.

The training series is co-sponsored by MoveOn, NARAL, PCCC, Indivisible, UltraViolet, NextGen, Bend the Arc, Supermajority, Daily Kos, the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Demos, the Sierra Club, the Working Families Party, Care in Action, Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, Center for International Policy, For Our Future, Freedom Forward, Friends of the Earth, National Women's Law Center, re: power, State Voices, The Wilderness Society, and Win Without War.

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