Thomas Shapiro of Brandeis University.

A Brandeis University expert on public policy and racial inequality, Thomas M. Shapiro speaks on the racial wealth gap at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 11, in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road.

Shapiro’s talk is part of the 10th annual Unity Conference presented by Amandla!, a student organization that advances understanding of the many communities of the African diaspora. The lecture is open to the public at no cost.

The conference’s theme this year is Economic Diversity: What Color Is Your Money? Understanding Economic Inequality and the Racial Wealth Gap. The event is co-sponsored by the Office of the President, the departments of economics and politics, and the social sciences division. A discussion and Q&A follow Shapiro’s talk.

directs the Institute on Assets and Social Policy at Brandeis, and is the Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at the university’s Heller School for Social Policy and Management. His research focus is the relationship between assets and the racial wealth gap.

His book The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality (Oxford University Press, 2004) combined national data with nearly 200 interviews to explore how continuing discrimination and the pervasive lack of financial assets dramatically impact the lives of many black families.

The book was widely reviewed, including by The Washington Post, Boston Globe and other major news organizations. Hidden Cost was named a Notable Book of 2004 by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

With Melvin Oliver of the University of California, Santa Barbara, Shapiro co-authored the acclaimed Black Wealth/White Wealth (Routledge, 1997). That book demonstrates how, over generations, blacks have had difficulty creating, expanding and preserving assets compared to their white counterparts. Analyzing quantitative data from more than 12,000 households, the authors illustrate the relationship between racialized wealth resources and opportunities for a better life.

The book revealed “for the first time the full economic damage caused by the special difficulties that blacks face,” wrote the New York Review of Books. “These facts need to be publicized so that white Americans can be made aware of the extent to which the civil rights movement of the 1960s failed to achieve its goal of fairness for blacks.”

Sponsored by Amandla!, the event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Freilla will address effects of race, class and consumerism on participation in the environmental movement. He will shed light on issues of environmental racism and discuss on how students can take action on campus and within their respective communities.

Freilla is internationally recognized as an outspoken environmental-justice activist dedicated to seeking solutions to the environmental impacts disproportionately faced by low-income communities of color. He is the founder and director of , committed to aiding worker-owned, environmentally friendly businesses in the South Bronx, where Freilla was raised and still lives.

He was named one of “The New School of Activists Most Likely to Change New York City” by City Limits magazine in 2000 and was featured in Leonardo DiCaprio’s global warming documentary The 11th Hour.

In 2004, Freilla’s writing on community opposition to transportation racism in New York City was published in the book Highway Robbery: Transportation Racism and New York Routes to Equity (South End Press). He has received numerous awards for his work including the Open Society Institute’s New York City Community Fellowship, the Union Square Award for grassroots activists and the Environmental Leadership Program fellowship.

I must admit, I will miss many aspects of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ while away.

Top 5

5) International Dinner: A time when international students prepare meals for the entire campus community from their homeland. The food is delicious and learning about food from different cultures can be intellectually stimulating and of course nourishing!

4) Amandla!: The Black student organization typically conducts an annual symposium on a particular issue concerning people of African Descent.

3) The Society of African American Studies: This organization is a developing organization at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. I serve as the moderator and upon my return to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in the fall 2009, I plan to work with other students to initiate a campus newsletter that provide a forum for student of African Americans Studies to publish their work and the newsletter will promote events and achievements from faculty and students within the African American Studies program.

2) People: The warm hospitality of faculty, administrators and staff at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ who are always willing to make sure you are most comfortable academically and personally

1) MLK DAY: My most favorite time at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Honestly it is.This is when the entire campus community is invited to come out to participate in workshops, forums and performances celebrating the life of Dr. King.

Czerny Brasuell, named first-ever "Administrator of the Year" by Amandla!

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College organization that cultivates solidarity among students of African descent,  Amandla! has announced its officers for the 2008-09 academic year.

Jasmine Beane ’11 of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, biochemistry major, and Theodore Sutherland ’11 of Accra, Ghana, a double major in French and economics, succeed departing co-coordinators Anthony Phillips ’10 of Philadelphia and Anthony Begon ’08 of Peabody, Mass.

Naming the new coordinators in a campuswide email, Phillips reviewed Amandla’s 2007-08 goals of inclusion, collectivity, family and cultural awareness. “We committed ourselves to crafting programs and events that would align with these objectives,” Phillips wrote.

Phillips also outlined a year of Amandla! successes:

Amandla! created its first-ever  “Administrator of the Year” award, naming as inaugural recipient Dean of Multicultural Affairs Czerny Brasuell for her outstanding mentorship to multicultural students at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. “Her track record and outstanding years of service made it easy to choose her to receive this award,” Phillips wrote.

Amandla! also saluted Associate Dean of Students James Reese with an award named in his honor. The James L. Reese Trailblazer Award will be given annually to a member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ faculty, administration or staff who devotes extraordinary time, care, mentorship and resources in supporting students of color at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College.

Goals Realized

Inclusion:
Amandla! organized several open campus forums, including a Martin Luther King Day workshop, on topics concerning individuals of African descent. Members of Amandla! organized a conference focused on the book The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans by Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson and Ronald Hall (Harcourt, 1992), which explores how skin color affects daily lives, and influences national social perceptions and influences politics. Co-author Hall delivered the conference’s keynote address, titled “The Bleaching Syndrome.” Raising more than $200 for the UNICEF Somalia Education Fund, the conference included an African Diaspora Dinner and a charity dance called Triad.

“We made an earnest effort to increase the number of non-black students who attend our weekly meetings,” wrote Phillips. These gatherings each covered a significant issue affecting the African Diaspora, including Zimbabwe’s presidential election, the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur and the U.S. presidential election.

Collectivity and Family:
“We formed familial bonds while collectively organizing events, and by learning about each other,” Phillips wrote. With the financial support of the Office of Multicultural Affairs, several Amandla! members traveled to New York City for the opening of the African Burial Ground,  a lower-Manhattan site that contains the remains of 17th- and 18th-century free and enslaved Africans. While off-campus travel cemented close bonds, events back at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ such as movie nights about black culture drew Amandla! students and the entire campus community closer together.

Cultural Awareness:
This year, Phillips wrote, Amandla! promoted the raising of black cultural awareness as a “vital task” in all of its event planning. These programs included the organization’s first pop quiz on topics in black history and the formation of the college’s first black gospel choir. During Black History Month, the group honored outstanding black alumni at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ by displaying their biographies throughout campus corridors and buildings.

Amandla!, the African American student organization at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, presents its fifth annual Unity Conference, Generation C: Generation Consciousness, an exploration of politics, gender and culture, on Saturday, March 17. Members of the public interested in learning about creating a more meaningful sense of community are invited to attend.

“Generation C” is a term used by civil rights activist and historian Cleveland Sellers, the keynote speaker at the college’s 2007 Martin Luther King Jr. birthday observance. According to Amandla! members, Sellers used the label to “appeal to young people to revive a sense of urgency about reconfiguring the ways in which issues of race are discussed and to what end.”

Featuring workshops, food, a keynote speaker and a dance, the conference opens at 2 p.m. with registration in the Perry Atrium of Pettengill Hall. Three consecutive workshops begin at 2:30 p.m. in the Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall. The workshops are open to the public at no cost. In order of presentation they are:

• Culture and Representation, with William Jelani Cobb, assistant professor of history at Spelman College. specializes in post-Civil War African American history, 20th- century American politics and the history of the Cold War. Cobb is a fiction writer, critic and essayist whose writings on politics, the African Diaspora and contemporary African American culture have appeared in a number of national outlets. His column Past Imperfect appears regularly on AOL BlackVoices.

• Bridging the Gender Divide, with Joy James, professor of Africana studies, Brown University. James holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Fordham University and a postdoctorate degree in religious ethics from the Union Theological Seminary at Columbia University. Her work focuses on political and feminist theory, critical race theory and incarceration.

• Race and Politics, with Devin Fergus, assistant professor of history, Vanderbilt University. teaches topics in 20th-century America, specializing in African American and modern political history. His current research examines the relations between liberalism and black nationalism in America from 1965 until 1980.

The Unity dinner, to be held at 6 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., will feature tasty fare, including some Somali cuisine. Dinner is free and open to the public.

The dinner’s keynote address will be given by Professor Devin.  Believing history, as novelist James Baldwin once wrote, “is present in all that we do,” Devin received his Ph.D. in that subject from Columbia University. He remains, he says, “dedicated to a critical examination of social issues and policies, even when research contradicts the official version of what we think we know about the past.” He seeks to produce scholarship that engages his peers, informs policy makers and is relevant to a general audience.

The conference concludes with the popular ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dance troupe, Triad. An annual party since 1981, the dance’s 2007 theme, “Green Day,” is inspired by St. Patrick’s Day, and is held in Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Music ranges from dancehall to rock, and featured DJs include Casanova in the Little Room and Bernadzo in Chase Lounge. The dance is open to the public, and tickets can be purchased in advance for $3 or at the door for $5.

Amandla!, a student-run organization at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, is dedicated to promoting better understanding among students who exhibit a variety of cultural differences. Its members seek to mediate between student-led initiatives and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community on issues pertaining to cultural difference.

Amandla!, the African American student organization at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College, presents Unity Conference 2006: Building a Black Community, on Friday, March 3, and Saturday, March 4.

A series of events featuring a keynote speaker and food, film, workshops and a dance, the fourth annual conference opens with “Flava,” a takeout dinner featuring Caribbean food, at 5:30 p.m., Friday, March 3, in Skelton Lounge, Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave., ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. Tickets are $10 and all proceeds go to the Eagles Breakaway Conference 2006 in Kingston and Montego Bay, Jamaica. The gathering aims to empower young Jamaicans with the knowledge they need to make more informed decisions about their educational future.

Friday evening continues with a screening of the documentary “The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,” followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Keith Beauchamp, at 6:30 p.m., Friday, March 3, in the Keck Classroom, Pettengill Hall.

Beauchamp unfolds a drama that has lived in African American history for more than 50 years, producing eyewitness accounts from individuals speaking out for the first time. A product of nine years of research and investigation, this documentary led to the reopening of the case against Till’s killers by the U.S. Department of Justice. See for more about the film.

The evening concludes with “Meet the Neighbors,” an ice cream social held at 8:30 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave. Attendees can meet members of the community, exchange experiences and develop contacts.

The conference presents a series of four workshops in Pettengill Hall on Saturday,March 4. Registration for the event begins at 1 p.m. in Pettengill Hall. The workshops are free and open to the public.

“Surviving at a White Tertiary Institution” begins at 2 p.m. and addresses the issues of social life, academics, finance and resources available. A 3 p.m. session, “The Role of the Black Woman,” explores the various vital roles black women play as leaders in the community. “What Does Success Mean to Me?” begins at 4 p.m., and “Remembering Our Roots” concludes the workshop series at 5 p.m. with a look at developmental issues that affect the ability of black students to contribute politically, socially and economically.

The Unity dinner, to be held at 6:30 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave., will feature soul food and some Somali dishes. Dinner is free and open to the public. Reservations are requested; please contact Lois St. Brice at this lstbrice@bates.edu.

The dinner’s keynote address will be given by Nishani Frazier, a visiting Mellon fellow at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in African American and American cultural studies and a Ph.D. candidate in history at Columbia University. An alumna of Spelman College and a native of North Carolina, Frazier is completing a dissertation on the history and impact of the Cleveland chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). A historian and writer, Frazier’s areas of focus include birth control, representations of African American women in history and film, archival and oral history preservation, and the 1960s freedom and Black Power movements.

Before serving as associate curator for African American history at Case Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Frazier spent two years as personal and administrative assistant to historian John Hope Franklin, including acting as his special assistant while he was chair of President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Race. She also worked as a researcher for the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta. Frazier is the co-editor with Manning Marable of the anthology Freedom on My Mind: The Columbia Documentary History of the African American Experience (2003).

Frazier’s article “‘I’m Going to Die for the People’: Prophecy and Death in the Lives and Rhetoric of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton,” will appear in the forthcoming anthology Homegoings, Crossings, and Passings: Life and Death in the African Diaspora.

The conference concludes with the popular ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dance, Triad. An annual party since 1981, the dance’s 2006 theme is “UNITY…It’s a celebration!” The event, held in three Chase Hall rooms from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., features hip hop, R&B, dancehall, soca, alternative, techno, salsa and reggaeton. Food will be served. The dance is open to the public, and tickets can be purchased in advance for $3 or for $5 at the door.

For more information on all events, contact St. Brice.

Amandla! (the Zulu word for “power”) is an organization dedicated to promoting better understanding between students of African descent and the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community. Its members seek to expose the campus and the wider community to the black experience through sponsorship of cultural and social events.

Coming to the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Museum of Art in October are an exhibition of prints by Robert Indiana and a symposium relating the visual arts to cryptozoology, the study of unknown, rumored or hidden animals.

To mark the opening of his exhibition Robert Indiana: The Hartley Elegies, renowned Vinalhaven artist Robert Indiana offers a lecture at 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, at the college’s Olin Arts Center, 75 Russell St. The exhibition consists of 10 prints made in homage to Marsden Hartley, a pioneering American modernist with whom Indiana finds artistic and personal kinship. The exhibition runs through Dec. 17.

A reception follows. Admission to the museum and its special events is free. For more information, call 207-786-6158 or visit the museum on the Web.

The Indiana event is part of a rich schedule for Parents and Family Weekend 2005 at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Also on tap for the weekend are the annual Cultural Extravaganza produced by Amandla!, a student organization exploring issues of African and African American culture; a talk by political humorist and a student art sale to benefit the at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.

Treating issues of cryptozoology, science and art, the symposium Out of Time Place Scale takes place at the museum Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29. Friday’s keynote speaker is cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, an authority in the field and the founder of the Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, where he lives. An exhibition relating to cryptozoology opens at the museum in June 2006.

Dedicating much of his art to the visual power of words and numbers, Robert Indiana may be best-known for his image of the word “LOVE” set in two lines with a tilting “O.” Originally created in 1964 for a Museum of Modern Art Christmas card, the image became a symbol of the 1960s counterculture. It appeared on a U.S. postage stamp in 1973 and has been adapted for a variety of media, including sculpture.

A resident of the Maine island of Vinalhaven, Indiana published The Hartley Elegies in the early 1990s. The imagery comes from Hartley’s 1914-15 “German Officer” paintings, created after the death of the soldier Karl von Freyburg, an event that devastated Hartley. In his distinctive hard-edged style, Indiana unites military symbols and geometric forms with references to Maine, America, war and history to create a series of symbolic portraits.

“With the largest holding of Hartley materials in the state, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ Museum of Art is pleased to present the ‘Elegies’ in recognition of Indiana’s and Hartley’s ties to Maine and their stature as American artists,” said museum director Mark Bessire.

To commemorate the college’s 150th anniversary and the museum’s 50th, the museum is introducing the Collection Project, a series of books and exhibitions looking critically at the museum’s art collection. The Hartley Elegies begins the project with the exhibition and a hardcover book with an essay by art scholar Susan Ryan.

Cryptozoology, the study of animals that roam the unmapped regions between reality and legend, has given us the quests for the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot and the Abominable Snowman. But it has also revealed animals that are now part of the classified natural world.

Cryptozoologists are often maligned as crackpots or publicity hounds — until a “real” discovery is made and previously skeptical scientific authorities shamelessly celebrate the “find,” as in the cases of the giant panda, the komodo dragon and the coelacanth. Then cryptozoologists go on to the next search and the cycle begins again. This consensus subjectivity offered in the guise of objectivity is the linchpin linking the practices of cryptozoology to those practices of contemporary art.

It’s a pursuit, says Bessire, “where the disciplines of science and art share a mutual focal point: a desperately desired visual encounter.”

Coleman’s books include Tom Slick: True Life Encounters in Cryptozoology (Linden Publishing, 2002); Bigfoot! The True Story of Apes in America (Paraview Pocket Books, 2003); and The Field Guide to Lake Monsters, Sea Serpents, and Other Mystery Denizens of the Deep (Jeremy P. Tarcher, 2003), of which he is a co-author.

Artists attending the symposium include Rachel Berwick, Ellen Lesperance, Mark Dion, Sean Foley, Alexis Rockman and Jeffrey Valance. A publication and film series will be produced in conjunction with the 2006 cryptozoology exhibition. The exhibition is curated by Bessire and Raechell Smith, director of the H&R Block Artspace at the Kansas City Art Institute, and is organized by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ museum and the Block Artspace.

The third annual Cultural Extravaganza takes place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall. The show celebrates the African cultural heritage through dance, drumming, spoken word and fashion. This year’s show features performances by students as well as guest artists Prophecy Dance Works of New York City. Appropriate for all ages, the event is free and open to the public. For more information please contact Melisa March at this mmarch@bates.edu.

The art sale benefiting the Katrina Relief Initiative takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in Perry Atrium, Pettengill Hall. Refreshments are available. A $20 donation buys a piece of art or refreshments served by the Ronj, with proceeds going to the KRI fund.

The weekend also includes a series of sporting events pitting ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ against Tufts, including Saturday’s 1 p.m. football game on Garcelon Field.

The afternoon gathering will focus on topics such as segregation in education, the criminal justice system, and HIV/AIDS and other health-related issues. Registration for the event begins at 2 p.m. in Pettengill Hall. The conference is free and open to the public.

The dinner, to be held at 6 p.m. in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, Campus Avenue, will feature soul food and some Somali dishes. The dinner’s keynote address will be given by economist Maya Michelle Rockeymore, vice president of research and programs for the , and an expert on Social Security. Dinner is free and open to the public. Reservations should be made in advance.

The conference concludes with a well-known ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ dance, Triad, whose 2005 theme is “Kings and Queens of the Dancehall.” The dance, from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Chase Hall, features hip hop, R&B, dancehall, soca, alternative, techno, salsa and reggae. Food will be served. The dance is open to the public, and tickets can be purchased in advance for $3 or for $5 at the door.

Amandla!, a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College organization addressing issues of people of black heritage, has launched a fund-raising drive to assist citizens of the Caribbean islands devastated by recent hurricanes and Sudanese refugees. All proceeds will go directly to the International Red Cross Emergency Relief Fund and Doctors Without Borders. For further information, call 207-795-5118.

Both the hurricanes in the Caribbean and the genocide perpetrated against the residents of Darfur, in eastern Sudan, “have placed millions of people in a situation of extreme hardship,” said ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ sophomore Lori-Anne Ramsay, an Amandla! student organizer from Brookline, Mass. “We need to do everything that we can right now to help.”

Two of the fund-raising events planned to date are suitable for both adults and children and open to the public.

A “Cultural Extravaganza” of songs, dances, storytelling, dub poetry, drumming and steel pans will be presented at 8:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 9, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St., ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. Dedicated to highlighting African and African diasporic heritage, the presentation will feature pieces from India, Latin America and the Caribbean performed by students, faculty and a New York-based group Songhai Djeli. No admission will be charged, but donations will be accepted.

A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ student-vs.-staff and -faculty basketball game will be held at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 15, in Alumni Gymnasium. The public is welcome and admission is $2 at the door.

The basketball fundraiser is co-sponsored by the programs in African American and American cultural studies.