We encourage our members to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by familiarizing themselves with the work of Michelle Alexander, this year’s speaker at Vanderbilt University's Martin Luther King Commemoration. Her keynote address will be a good introduction to her important book, The New Jim Crow, which has received excellent reviews and won the 2011 NAACP Image Award for best nonfiction.
The book is a stunning account of the rebirth of a caste-like system in the United States, one that has resulted in millions of African Americans locked behind bars and then relegated to a permanent second-class status—denied the very rights supposedly won in the Civil Rights Movement. The New Jim Crow tells a truth our nation has been reluctant to face.
Michelle Alexander
author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
Monday | January 21, 2013 | 7PM
Langford Auditorium
Vanderbilt University
Following the keynote and a book signing, members of the Divinity School and other community partners will lead a brief prayer vigil.
Please note: This is a ticketed event. A limited number of free tickets are available through the church. Individuals may also get no more than two tickets from the box office at the Sarratt Student Center 343-0371
Michelle Alexander, a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University, is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar. In recent years, she has taught at a number of universities, including Stanford Law School, where she was an associate professor of law and directed the Civil Rights Clinics.