State of the Black Worker in America

Posted in Events

As we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor and the Black Labor Scholars Network were pleased to host the State of the Black Worker in America, a day and a half long conference at Georgetown University on October 10-11, 2013.

This conference delved into the history of black workers and their organizing efforts; the current state and vision of black leadership within unions; innovative and cutting edge black led organizing going on across the country; and, a gender-based analysis of black organizing. We are grateful for the support of the Georgetown University Lecture Fund (new window), the Neighborhood Funders Group (new window), the Discount Foundation (new window), the Ford Foundation (new window), the Moriah Fund (new window), and the Hill-Snowdon Foundation (new window).

Thursday, October 10, 7:00 PM, Gaston Hall

Click here (new window) to view part two.

Our featured speaker was Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the Washington Post and a political analyst on MSNBC.  As one of the most prominent African American intellectuals on the culture scene and author of Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America (2010), Robinson also shares with audiences his understanding of race relations in the United States and explains why many popular conceptions are now obsolete.

Robinson was joined in a panel discussion by Bill Lucy, President Emeritus of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and former Secretary-Treasurer of AFSCME; Eric Arnesen, a leading historian of African American history at George Washington University; and Nikki Lewis, the Executive Director of DC Jobs with Justice.

The keynote panel was co-sponsored with the Georgetown University Lecture Fund.

Friday, October 11, 9:00 AM, Fisher Colloquium

Click here (new window) to view the conference program.For more information, contact us at kilwp@georgetown.edu (new window).