OSI-Baltimore’s Talking About Race series, co-sponsored by the Enoch Pratt Free Library, addresses race from different perspectives, and exploring why it is important to discuss the topic openly and intelligently.
June 17, 2013
Dr. Phillip Goff, Executive Director of Research for the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity, and Lieutenant Colonel Melvin Russell, Chief of Baltimore Police Department’s Community Partnerships Division, address some provocative issues: What are the underlying causes of racial differences in arrests? What role does implicit bias play? Can communities and police work together in a meaningful way? Joe Jones, Executive Director of the Center for Urban Families and OSI-Baltimore board member, serves as moderator.
October 20, 2011
Ivory Toldson, associate professor at Howard University, and Raymond Winbush, director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University, talk about what educators, parents and families can do to ensure that African American boy succeed. Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Open Society Campaign for Black Male Achievement, serves as moderator.
September 15, 2011
Michelle Gourdine, physician and author of Reclaiming Our Health: A Guide to African American Wellness, and Thomas LaVeist, director of the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Disparities Solutions, will discuss the inequities that exist in our current medical care system and offer solutions for change.
photo by Joe Henson
January 12, 2011
For almost 55 years, thousands upon thousands of black Americans from the South left their homes in search of a better future for themselves and their children. Sherrilyn Ifill, Civil Rights lawyer and OSI-Baltimore board member, interviewed Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration.
photo by Civic Ventures
November 4, 2010
Commissioner Rev. Mark Sills and Rev. Nelson Johnson and his wife Joyce Johnson discussed the lessons learned from the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The conversation was moderated by U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Judge Andre Davis.
April 20, 2010
Bryan Stevenson founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, and professor at New York University School of Law, and Renée Hutchins, professor at the University of Maryland Law School, discussed how race affects attitudes and outcomes in the criminal justice system.
November 2, 2009
Beverly Daniel Tatum, president of Spelman College and author of Can We Talk About Race? And Other Conversations in an Era of School Resegregation, which discusses how American schools are experiencing increasing and underreported resegregation, spoke with David Hornbeck, former Philadelphia Superintendent of Schools and author of Choosing Excellence in Public Schools: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way, about how race plays out in our classrooms.
photo by Jeffrey MacMillan
September 16, 2009
With the election of President Obama, some say race is no longer an obstacle to success and that the “American Dream” is more reality than not. At this discussion, Ben Jealous, executive director of the NAACP, and Gerald Torres, professor at the University of Texas Law School and co-author of The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, challenged this assumption.
June 4, 2009
Gwen Ifill of Washington Week and The News Hour and Sherrilyn A. Ifill, civil rights lawyer and law professor at the University of Maryland School of Law, discussed this pivotal moment in American history and its potential for advancing equity and social justice.