Anti-racism pioneer Jane Elliott, journalist Roland Martin will speak at U-M

February 2, 2017
Contact:
  • umichnews@umich.edu

DATE: 8:30 a.m. March 3, 2017

EVENT: Anti-racism activist and pioneer Jane Elliott and journalist Roland Martin will discuss issues of race, gender and identity in the workplace at the 35th annual Career Conference hosted by the University of Michigan Women of Color Task Force.

Robin Means Coleman, associate dean at the Rackham School of Graduate Studies and professor of communication studies and Afroamerican and African studies, will moderate the discussion.

Elliott has taught her groundbreaking “Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes” anti-racist group social exercise for over 36 years, working to make people more empathetic to racism. Starting the exercise in her third-grade classroom in all-white, all-Christian Riceville, Iowa, immediately after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., this exercise has provided dramatic results for both children and adults throughout the country. Her work has been the subject of several television documentaries, written up in many psychology and social studies texts, and the book “A Class Divided, Then and Now.”

Martin is host and managing editor of TV One’s NewsOne Now, the first daily morning news program to focus on news and analysis of politics, entertainment, sports and culture from an explicitly African-American perspective. He is the creator and host of the Roland Martin Show, as well as senior analyst for the Tom Joyner Morning Show. Honored with the 2013 National Association of Black Journalists’ Journalist of the Year Award, Martin is a two-time winner of the NAACP Image Award and has received more than 40 professional media awards. Spending six years as a CNN contributor, he was granted the Peabody Award in 2009.

PLACE: Hill Auditorium, 825 N. University Ave., Ann Arbor

INFORMATION: The keynote discussion is free the public, but registration is requested. Attendees may submit questions to the speakers and register at myumi.ch/6jegK.

SPONSORS: U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts; University Human Resources; UMHS-Human Resources Office; Office of the Provost; Center for the Education of Women; and TIAA