The 41st Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series

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It is with great pleasure that we invite you to join us for the 41st Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, One Begins Again: Organizing & the Historical Imagination, moderated by Barbara Ransby. The conference will be held online on Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 9:30 A.M. EST.

Alicia Garza, Bill Fletcher Jr., and Cara Page, each in important ways, speak about organizing as a means to healing generations of society-wide injustice.

Each has devoted their lives to the work of organizing, understanding the conditions shaped by the past, and testing what works and what doesn’t.

Each demonstrates how this invested, critical- practical work of understanding deep historical patterns helps us reimagine the present to invest it with the possibilities of change.

Each envisions better, potential Americas, or in the words of Langston Hughes, “The land that never has been yet—And yet must be.”

This forward-moving, liberating historical imagination is an act of aware, purpose-filled, enriched living in the here and now.

This visioning sparks ongoing movement building and the new possibilities for a life- and planet- sustaining near future.

The Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture (MTW) series was co-founded in 1981 by Rutgers University-Newark Professor Clement A. Price and Giles R. Wright of the New Jersey Historical Commission who launched the series with the belief that the rigorous exploration of the past, made accessible to a broad public of learners, would help guide the nation into a brighter future. The conference is named in honor of a native of East Orange. Marion Thompson Wright was arguably the first black female professional historian and a pioneer in Black New Jersey historiography. In her honor, the series brings outstanding thinkers and doers of African and African American life and history. Diverse, civically engaged, and devoted to life-long learners, the MTW Series is one of the nation’s most distinguished and longest running lectures. The Clement A. Price Institute is devoted to building deep historical justice in our region and beyond.

If you would like more information or have questions about the event, please email us at [email protected]

View Information on Past MTW Lectures