DETROIT, MI— The Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights at Wayne Law will present its 8th biennial lecture on Thursday, November 9, featuring Rhonda Williams, Ph.D., Wayne State University’s Coleman A. Young Endowed Chair in the Department of African American Studies. Her performance lecture, titled “Footsteps & Footprints: On Race & (In) Justice” is sponsored by Comerica Bank and co-hosted by Wayne State University Law School and African American Studies Department. Dr. Williams is a historian of low-income black women’s and marginalized people’s experiences, everyday lives, politics, and social struggles. 

The event will begin at 7 p.m. in the Spencer M. Partrich Auditorium at the Law School, 471 W. Palmer St, Detroit, MI. Representing Wayne State University and opening up the event prior to the keynote will be Dr. Kimberly Espy, university president, Richard Bierschbach, dean of Wayne Law, Professor Peter Hammer, director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, and Ollie Johnson, department chair of WSU African American Studies. Parking is $9 (credit or debit card only) in Parking Structure No. 1 directly across from Wayne Law. The lecture is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Williams began teaching in 1997 and is steeped in both academia and activism. She has authored two books, the award-winning The Politics of Public Housing: Black Women's Struggles against Urban Inequality (2004) and Concrete Demands: The Search for Black Power in the 20th Century (2015). She also co-edits the book series “Justice, Power, and Politics” at the University of North Carolina Press and is co-editor of Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement.

Before taking her position as the inaugural John L. Seigenthaler Chair in American History at Vanderbilt, Williams worked at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, where she established and directed the Postdoctoral Fellowship in African American Studies, and founded and directed the university-wide Social Justice Institute.

Every two years, the Keith Center welcomes a civil rights luminary for a lecture on their work, passion and wisdom about today’s civil rights issues. Past speakers have included writer, activist and professor Julian Bond; humanitarian, activist, actor and singer Harry Belafonte; renowned and pioneering lawyer Constance Rice; and Lani Guinier, a groundbreaking scholar and the first African-American woman to receive tenure at Harvard Law School.

For more information about Dr. Rhonda Williams as Wayne State University’s Coleman A. Young Endowed Chair visit the news page. Or to RSVP for this event, visit the event website.

Photo: Dr. Rhonda Williams

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Contact: Jennifer Kennedy

Email: Jennifer.kennedy2@wayne.edu

Phone: 313-577-4629