William Jelani Cobb gives the 2016 Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address in the Gomes Chapel at 乐播传媒 on Jan. 21. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

When 39 percent of white voters cast their ballots for an African American presidential candidate in 2008, people “thought it was a tremendous amount of racial progress,” historian William Jelani Cobb told a 乐播传媒 College audience on Jan. 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Barack Obama’s landmark victory was even deemed the start of a “post-racial” era in the U.S.

But, Cobb continued, “African Americans have been voting for candidates who did not share our race” for 135 years, since the 15th Amendment to the Constitution assured their right to vote. “And no one ever said, ‘Oh, African Americans are post-racial.’

“But when 40 percent of white people did, it was like, ‘OK, we’re done.'”

A staff writer for The New Yorker and a history professor and director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut, Cobb made that ironic point during his keynote address for 乐播传媒’ MLK Day observances.

Titled The Half-Life of Freedom, the talk was a trenchant argument for the centrality of race to our history 鈥� despite a prevailing view that race, as Cobb put it, is just “a side dish to the main course.”

Cobb’s talk came early in a packed schedule of MLK Day activities at 乐播传媒. Speaking to a near-capacity crowd in the Peter J. Gomes Chapel, Cobb shared the pulpit with U.S. Sen. Angus King, 乐播传媒 President Clayton Spencer, and other members of the college community.

“If ever Martin Luther King Day were important for us as a day for community learning and reflection, it is now, in this moment,” Spencer said in her welcome. “And our topic today, ‘Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship,’ could not be more timely.”

Elucidating the theme, she cited Michelle Alexander, whose book The New Jim Crow argues that the mass incarceration of young African American men is “simply the latest move in a highly adaptive system of racial exclusion that extends back to the earliest history of the nation.”

In an era when race has ostensibly ceased to be a basis for the denial of rights, “instead, we target people of color, label them as criminals, and then feel justified in pushing them, systematically and irrevocably, to the margins of society,” Spencer said.

High-profile instances of police violence against blacks and of prejudice on campuses from Yale to the University of Missouri have been a wake-up call. “These past two years, in particular, have been a time when many of us who like to think of ourselves as progressive on issues of race have gone to school on the question of structural racism,” Spencer said, “and how it continues to manifest itself in systematic, insidious, and relentless ways.

Sen. King offered a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. that linked the Battle of Gettysburg and the 1963 March on Washington (which Angus King, then a college sophomore, observed from the vantage point of a tree near the Lincoln Memorial).

In linking the 1963 march and the 1863 battle, King quoted Joshua Chamberlain, whose leadership of Maine troops at Little Round Top was decisive. “Generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; and lo, the shadow of a mighty presence will wrap them in its bosom and the power of the vision shall pass into their souls.”

Associate Professor of History Joseph Hall introduced Cobb. “Read some of his work,” Hall urged the crowd. “Dr. Cobb explores how the phenomena of a moment have pedigrees that are decades or even centuries old.”

Cobb took a metaphor from Thomas Levenson’s recent history The Hunt for Vulcan, the story of how the traditional Newtonian view of physics was disrupted by the advent of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. There were discrepancies in the motions of celestial bodies, Cobb said, that Newton’s laws couldn’t explain but Einstein’s theory could.

According to Einstein, phenomena like gravity and time “are all relative, and we can only understand the existence of one body by understanding its relationship to another.”

So it is with the perception and the reality of the American political system. That system, Cobb explained, is traditionally seen as a historic break from millennia of tyranny, a realization “of the Enlightenment idea that all humans are educable, that they have equality, that they’re born with inherent inalienable rights.”

But, as with Newton’s vs. Einstein’s physics, there are phenomena in American history and culture that this idealistic view can’t explain. “You wind up with those same kinds of nagging inconsistencies that people experienced,” said Cobb, “as they were trying to apply Newton’s ideas to the celestial motion of bodies in the universe.

Visiting speaker William Jelani Cobb, at left, meets Evan Molinari ’16 of Milwaukie, Ore., who told Cobb about his senior honors history thesis on Paul Robeson and Jackie Robinson. In the background is Rakiya Mohamed ’18 of Auburn, Maine. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

“And so race has deformed democracy in the same ways that gravity deforms space and time. And unless we understand individuals in relation to other individuals, we cannot understand the way that our society operates today.”

While many would like to believe that race is “a side dish to the main course of American history,” it’s really central to that history, even embedded in a Constitution that assigned each African American man three-fifths the value of a white man.

In one especially sobering example, Cobb mentioned how an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, deplored the Crown’s involvement in the trans-Atlantic slave trade 鈥� but that condemnation was expunged from the final draft to placate slaveholders in the South.

Cobb drew a gasp from the audience when he continued, “Every Fourth of July, as we recognize the nation鈥檚 independence, we also recognize the anniversary of black humanity being copy-edited out of the final document.鈥�

“When we look at the history of states, race confronts us everywhere,” Cobb continued 鈥� from Florida, seized by Andrew Jackson from the Spanish so that escaped slaves from the United States couldn’t take refuge there, to Maine, admitted to the Union as a free state to counterbalance adding the slave state of Missouri.

And remember the Alamo: Settlers seized Texas from Mexico in part because the Mexicans, who were offering free land to white farmers, prohibited slavery.

Homing in on 乐播传媒’ theme for the holiday, Cobb presented some of his most important revelations, involving two of the amendments to the Constitution that were passed after the Civil War to redress injustices embedded in the original document.

Jelani Cobb addresses a near-capacity Gomes Chapel on Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2016. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

“Sometimes,” he said, “within actual progress there are the seeds of regression.” For example, the 13th Amendment eradicated slavery 鈥� “except for individuals duly convicted of a crime,” Cobb explained.

“So it is no coincidence that in the wake of Emancipation, Southern economies began to rely increasingly on the labors of people who were incarcerated,” he said. “The legacy is very clear.

“We can see in places like Parchman Farm, in Mississippi, which started out as a slave plantation and then became a prison. There were people who lived on Parchman Farm as slaves, were emancipated, and then came back to Parchman Farm as prisoners.”

Cobb devoted a few minutes to Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s Jan. 6 racially charged comments about the nicknames and dating behavior of people who come to Maine to sell drugs 鈥� specifically, the remark that “half the time [dealers] impregnate a young white girl before they leave.”

LePage, said Cobb, “echoed an idea that is tremendously dangerous in American history, and that is that we have to protect white women from the menace of black men.” How dangerous? Dylann Roof, a white man accused of shooting nine African Americans to death in a South Carolina church last June, cited the need to protect white women from black men among his motivations.

Cobb said, “We should be disturbed by the fact that these ideas share the same provenance, that they come from the same place. We should be concerned about what these ideas have been used to justify.”

Here’s how MLK Day 2016 looked 鈥� what was said and read, and what was acted, sung, and pondered 鈥� as the campus community and invited guests from near and far came together to work on the theme “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship.”

7:02 p.m., Jan. 17

The college’s MLK observance began with Sunday evening’s traditional MLK Memorial Worship Service in Gomes Chapel, which encompassed dance, music, and spoken word. The homily was delivered by the Rev. Peter Paris, author and professor emeritus of Christian social ethics at Princeton Theological Seminary.

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

8:20 a.m., Jan. 18

The day got an early start. Chris Petrella ’06, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, and Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque gave the day’s events and theme, “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship,” a solid foundation by presenting a whirlwind survey of pertinent issues.

Among the staggering facts and figures:

• By the end of 2014, nearly seven million Americans were subject to some sort of correctional supervision.
• The U.S. incarceration rate is the world’s highest. According to the , for every 100,000 people, the U.S. has 716 behind bars; the United Kingdom, 147; Canada, 118; and Norway, 72.
• From 1974 to 2014, the incarceration rate has skyrocketed 鈥� increasing fivefold.
• Convictions for drug offenses drove the increase. In 1980, federal prisons held some 4,700 individuals for drug offenses. In 2014, the number was 96,500.
• Racial disparities in imprisonment rates are striking. Just one white American out of 17 is likely to be imprisoned, while the rate is far higher among Latino men (one in six) and black men (one in three).
• One in 117 white women will be imprisoned vs. one in 45 Latina women and one in 18 black women.

In Gomes Chapel, just before the MLK Day keynote, Christopher Petrella ’06 discusses issues surrounding imprisonment. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

8:55 a.m., Jan. 18

The MLK keynote session started with remarks by President Clayton Spencer:

Particularly relevant to our topic today, Michelle Alexander argues in The New Jim Crow that the mass incarceration of young men of color, initiated by the war on drugs and carried through to the jaw-dropping incarceration rates of today, is simply the latest move in a highly adaptive system of racial exclusion that extends back to the earliest history of the nation….

We have to ask ourselves: At 乐播传媒, even with our storied history 鈥� no, especially with our storied history 鈥� in what ways do our very own culture, structures, unthinking ways, and even conscious ways marginalize students and others of color whom we invite to be here and promise full participation?

And what are we going to do about it?

From left, President Clayton Spencer, U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, Associate Professor of History Joe Hall, and MLK Day keynote speaker Jelani Cobb. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

9:21 a.m., Jan. 18

In his remarks, U.S. Sen. Angus King recalled the 1963 March on Washington:

Fifty-two years ago, Americans marched to Washington’s great National Mall. … Those people came to Washington drawn by a radical idea 鈥� an idea that’s at the heart of the American experience, an idea that was new to the world in 1776, tested in 1865, renewed in 1963, and an idea still new and radical today in much of the world.

That idea is that all men and women are created equal.

Fifty-two years ago at that sacred place, Americans sent a message to their leaders and to the world: that the promise of equality of opportunity, equality before the law, equality of the right to freely participate in the benefits and responsibilities of citizenship, apply to everyone in a country, not just the lucky few of the right color or accident of birth.

This is what Martin Luther King meant when he said that his dream was deeply rooted in the American dream.

U.S. Sen. Angus King speaks during the college’s MLK Day gathering in the Gomes Chapel. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

9:41 a.m., Jan. 18

In his keynote, Jelani Cobb includes an acutely personal example of racial double standards.

“I’m old enough to remember the scourge of heroin when it first emerged and was largely considered a drug problem among black and brown people,” he said. Cobb’s oldest brother became addicted to heroin while serving in Vietnam and died of an HIV infection contracted while he was using heroin.

The surge of heroin use among people of color was, in part, “the basis for the beginning of the ‘War on Drugs’ and the mass incarceration that has accompanied it,” Cobb said.

Today’s conversation about heroin use is “staggeringly different.”

Cobb compared that era with recent comments from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. “He spoke movingly about ways in which drug abuse has ruined families and the ways in which it’s a cause for all of our sympathies and concerns.”

Hearing Christie’s remarks, Cobb noticed that today’s conversation about heroin use is “staggeringly different.” Now that heroin is a crisis “among young white people,” Cobb said, it’s curious that Christie did not say that “we should respond to this problem by locking more people up.”

Jelani Cobb delivers the MLK Day keynote in the Gomes Chapel. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

10:30 a.m., Jan. 18

The key question during a panel on “Global Accounts of State Violence and Identity鈥� came from a student, and it came after we鈥檇 heard three senior anthropology majors talk about their thesis fieldwork, which, in each case, had brought them face to face with victims of trauma or physical violence.

The question: What鈥檚 it like to ask people questions about their grief, trauma, and pain? The answer, each senior said, is to focus on the person’s humanity.

Create spaces that allow kindness.

鈥淵ou respond to the people as if one of your close friends had shared something difficult,鈥� said Detmer Kremer of Nij Beets, Netherlands, who shared findings about the anti-refugee movement in the Netherlands and religious exclusion in Samoa.

鈥淵ou provide opportunities to stop the interview, to halt the process, to create spaces that allow kindness to be part of the process.鈥�

He was joined by Ashley Bryant of Medfield, Mass., who talked about anti-Muslim sentiment in American public schools, and Carly Peruccio of Manchester, Conn., who described women鈥檚 experiences during Morocco鈥檚 era of state-sponsored violence against dissidents, the 鈥淵ears of Lead,鈥� from the 1960s to 1980s.

A student listens to the panel discussion on “Global Accounts of State Violence and Identity.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen)

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10:31 a.m., Jan. 18

A poster in the “mouthpiece” display case announces the MLK Day theme.

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

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11:37 a.m. Jan. 18

鈥淲e are trying to make a change but we are the minority. We need you to pitch in as a community for the future generations. Whether you know it or not, you have the power to change the world, to make it safer for us people of color.鈥�

With that statement, actor Mouamed M. broke the fourth wall in Schaeffer Theatre during the premiere of Something鈥檚 Wrong Here, a play written and performed by two youth groups, Maine Inside Out and the MLK Fellows.

A shift to “accountability and connection.”

Co-founded by Margot Fine ’03, Maine Inside Out collaborates with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people to create and share original theater. The Maine Inside Out cast members of Something’s Wrong Here comprised current and former residents of the Long Creek Youth Development Center in South Portland.

“The goal is to shift from our current culture of punishment and isolation to one of accountability and connection,鈥� explained Fine.

The MLK Fellows, sponsored by a Portland-based youth development program, contributed to the play by punctuating several scenes with original poetry, which elicited a cacophony of appreciative snaps from audience members, and reciting statistics on poverty levels, literacy rates, and the growing number of incarcerated people of color in Maine.

A scene from Something’s Wrong Here, performed on MLK Day. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

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11:39 a.m., Jan. 18

Visitors from high schools along with participants in MLK Day events walk toward Commons for lunch.

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

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12:03 p.m., Jan. 18

A selection of images from workshops that brought 乐播传媒 people and guests together for discussion and thought:

• “Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the Criminalization of HIV/AIDS,” led by Professor of Rhetoric Charles Nero;
• “Power and Complacency in American Incarceration and Our Community,” led by the Stringfellow Coordinators of the Multifaith Chaplaincy;
• “International Criminal Court: A Step Toward Global Justice?” led by the Africana Club;
• “Should Environmentalists Also Be Prison Abolitionists?” led by environmental studies lecturer Ethan Miller ’00.

(Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

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1:24 p.m. Jan. 18

Each MLK Day, several faculty, students, and staff read from texts that have inspired them. Here are brief video excerpts from six readings, in this order:

Jeremy Glover 鈥�17 of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, reading from in Cleveland on April 26, 1967. “My mother was in attendance,” Glover said, “so it has a special importance in my life.”

Helene Sudac 鈥�19 of Lake Forest, Ill., reading from 鈥�,鈥� by James Baldwin (1962).

Caleb Perlman 鈥�19 of Carlisle, Mass., reading from , by Thich Nhat Hahn (1995).

Joseph Hall, associate professor of history, reading from , by William Apes (1836).

Jessica Perez, assistant dean in Student Affairs, reading from , by Grace Lee Boggs (2011).

Jamil Drake, visiting assistant professor of religious studies, reading from King’s speech ,鈥� delivered at New York City鈥檚 Riverside Church on April 4, 1967.

2:40 p.m., Jan. 18

At an MLK Day workshop exploring how 乐播传媒 is adopting principles and practices of restorative justice, there was no shame in holding a stuffed cow called Stuart while you spoke.

In fact, sans Stuart, you didn’t speak. Under the rules of a “restorative circle” exercise, you spoke only when the cow came to you. Otherwise, you practiced active listening.

The group put the concept into practice during the session by talking about the at U.S. colleges and universities.

Leading the exercise were Robert Ibarra ’17 of Los Angeles and Katie Stevenson ’17 of Ewing, N.J. They get plenty of practice: as Mediation and Restorative Justice Fellows in the Student Life office, they have been leading restorative circles and related exercises around campus this year.

Their hope is to teach the 乐播传媒 community that responding to student misconduct can focus on redressing harm rather than on punishment.

“Trust the circle.”

The other workshop leaders, Carl Steidel of the Student Affairs office and psychology professor Georgia Nigro, are establishing restorative justice as an alternative approach in student conduct proceedings.

The circular discussion and “talking piece,” aka Stuart, are key. They enable “people to get to the stuff that they need to get to,” Steidel said. “Trust the circle.”

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

4:03 p.m., Jan. 18

This year’s traditional Benjamin Mays Debate gave student debaters from 乐播传媒 and Morehouse a chance to argue the value of police reform vs. prison reform.

Morehouse sophomore Best Uchehara supported the Government position, in favor of police reform:

“Ethnic minorities of America have been robbed of justice. Beaten mercilessly at the hands of law enforcement officials who are supposed to be just. Burdened by frequent targeting and racial profiling. Berated, with an unjust reality that lies contrary to what is promised in the Constitution. We, on the side of the Government, believe that enough is enough. We need reform.鈥�

Morehouse College sophomore debater Best Uchehara argues for police reform. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

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4:25 p.m., Jan. 18

Michael Stone 鈥�17 of Litchfield, N.H., and Keith Matier, a sophomore at Morehouse College, argued for prison reform.

Police are merely 鈥済atekeepers鈥� of the criminal justice system, said Stone. Solving mass incarceration means rehabilitating prisoners and reducing the stigma they face when they return to society. Ultimately, reform would mean lower poverty rates and greater employment.

Without reform, said Matier, being imprisoned will continue to create less-productive Americans. 鈥淲hen I see a prison…I say, 鈥楾hat is a place I do not want to go because I鈥檓 going to be relegated to social, economic, and political inferiority.”

Michael Stone 鈥�17 of Litchfield, N.H., and Keith Matier, a sophomore at Morehouse College, discuss strategy to counter the Government’s position. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

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7:38 p.m., Jan. 18

An annual expression of pride and accomplishment for members of the African diaspora at 乐播传媒, this year’s edition of Sankofa on MLK Day shared experiences of Afro-women internationally, linked by the theme of storytelling and friendship.

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

(Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

A scene from Sankofa's 2016 MLK Day performance. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

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1:48 p.m., Jan. 19

The day after MLK Day, Adam Blau ’18 of Pacific Palisades, Calif., and James Reese, longtime dean in Student Affairs who is a founder of the college’s MLK Day tradition, were among volunteers who read to Lewiston schoolchildren at the Martel School during the annual MLK Read-In.

(Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

(Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

(Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

Reporting by Leanne Ouimet, Doug Hubley, and Jay Burns.

William Jelani Cobb gives the Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote address at 乐播传媒 on Jan. 18. (Peter Morenus/University of Connecticut)

Assistant Professor of Sociology Michael Rocque and colleague Chris Petrella 鈥�06, a First-Year Seminar lecturer at 乐播传媒, comment on the 2016 乐播传媒 MLK Day theme, “Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship.”

William Jelani Cobb

Mass Incarceration and Black Citizenship

Members of the 乐播传媒 and Lewiston-Auburn communities share their views in the Muskie Archives during the 2015 MLK Day workshop “Perspectives on Ferguson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

More about MLK Day 2016 events

Zoe Seaman-Grant ’17 of the Brooks Quimby Debate Council and Jonathan Carlisle, Morehouse College Class of 2017, are shown during the 2015 Rev. Benjamin Elijah Mays debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Co-directors Olivier Brillant ’17 and Annakay Wright ’17 accept the audience’s appreciation after the 2015 Sankofa production on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, “Black Voice: The Life of Evelyn Ola Johnson.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Amandla!, the African American student organization at 乐播传媒 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:

鈥⒙�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.

鈥⒙�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.

鈥⒙�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.聽 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 乐播传媒 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 乐播传媒, 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 乐播传媒 community on issues pertaining to cultural difference.