JOIN US FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF OUR CRITICALLY BLACK DIALOGUE SERIES, AN ONGOING TALK SERIES THAT EXAMINES THE SHARED PAN-AFRICAN EXPERIENCE FROM A DIVERSE SET OF BLACK LENSES.
This upcoming event will commemorate the life and legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We’ll take a deep dive into a version of Dr. King that often gets toned down and most likely omitted from the books: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. - the Pan Africanist.
Dr. King’s global ministry was birthed during Africa's decolonization period. Naturally, the radical decolonization and anti-Apartheid movements in Ghana, Nigeria, and South Africa inspired his transnational advocacy. It helped to elevate the Black American Civil Rights Movement and globalize the international human rights movement against racism, colonization, and war. In Dr. King’s speeches, essays, and interviews he consistently drew lines between the struggles on the motherland and the ones endured by African descendant brothers and sisters in South America and the Caribbean. Dr. King boldly embraced his African heritage and even encouraged Black Americans to immigrate to Africa to assist in her development.
Unfortunately, the mainstream representation of Dr. King leaves us with a commodified and more conservative version that portrays him as the voice of “moderation” in the Black community. It omits his beginning as a far more radical leader, especially on matters of labor, poverty, anticolonialism, and economic justice, than we remember.
ASH-LEE HENDERSON, CO-DIRECTOR AT HIGHLANDER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER
Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson is an Affrilachian (Black Appalachian) woman from the working class, born and raised in Southeast Tennessee. She is the first Black woman to serve as Co-Executive Director of the Highlander Research & Education Center in New Market, TN. As a member of multiple leadership teams in the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), Ash-Lee has thrown down on the Vision for Black Lives and the BREATHE Act. Ash-Lee has served on the governance council of the Southern Movement Assembly, the advisory committee of the National Bailout Collective, and is an active leader of The Frontline. She is a long-time activist who has done work in movements fighting for workers, for reproductive justice, for LGBTQUIA+ folks, for environmental justice, and more.
JULIEN TERRELL, COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
Julien Terrell is a cultural organizer, educator and artist born and raised in Harlem where he first developed his passion for history and popular education. He began organizing in the early 2000s on issues of environmental justice/health, gentrification and policing and in Buffalo and NYC, connecting this work to the preservation of cultural and community spaces. Since then, he has worked the last 18 years in organizing and leadership development ( both youth and adults) and currently focuses on supporting organizations interested in expanding culturally and structurally to meet the needs of their staff and communities they serve.
Julien lives in rural Pennsylvania with his family and serves as the Director of Organizational Development for Causa Justa/ Just Cause based in The Bay Area.