African and African American Studies

2024 Sojourner Truth lecturer Rokhaya Diallo explores her life and the experiences of women

Shayla Brown — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 20:21:56 +0000

2024 Sojourner Truth lecturer Rokhaya Diallo explores her life and the experiences of women Shayla Brown Fri, 03/08/2024 - 15:21

Award-winning journalist, broadcast host, and filmmaker Rokhaya Diallo is ��AV’s 2024 Sojourner Truth Lecture speaker and award recipient. Born in France to Senegalese and Indian parents, Diallo said she started to notice that fewer people looked like her as she advanced in her studies and career. This led her to explore her own identity and depict the experiences of other women of color in her work.

Sojourner Truth lecture speaker Rokhaya Diallo. Photo by Brigitte Sombie.

Race wasn’t something Diallo was really aware of while she was growing up, she said. “The U.S. narrative is prevalent all over the world, so whenever we speak about Black [public] figures [in France], we only refer to American figures,” said Diallo. For example, she said, there are landmarks named after figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., but not many named after historic Black figures from France.

Diallo’s lecture discussed Republican Universalism in France, and she shared clips from her documentaries demonstrating the challenges Black women in France faced expressing their multiple identities in a society that prides itself on being “colorblind.”

“It was important to question how France displayed itself on film and TV,” she said in describing her 2020 documentary Acting While Black: Blackness on French Screens.  “[The country] tried to tackle racist sentiments in the public space but also reshape the idea that we had about the French identity,” said Diallo.

“This was my favorite part of the lecture,” said LaNitra Berger, associate professor of history and art history and director of African and African American Studies Program. “It really highlighted the inconsistencies in French policy and culture that make it difficult for people of color to feel accepted in French society.”

Diallo’s February 26 lecture was virtual to an in-person audience.

“We wanted to be cost effective and honor Rokhaya's busy schedule, but we also wanted the feeling of a community gathering in person to discuss an important topic,” said Berger.  

The Sojourner Truth award is given annually to a Black woman whose work embodies the principles of Sojourner Truth through art, scholarship, activism, and contributions to public life. Sojourner Truth was an outspoken advocate for abolition, civil and women's rights in the nineteenth century. Previous speakers have included Marilyn Mobley, Jennifer C. Nash, Kakenya Ntaiya, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, and Aja Clark.

Also in attendance at the lecture was Stephanie Rambo, an assistant professor with Mason’s English Department. Rambo was presented with the Sojourner Truth Faculty Award by Berger for her research on literary Black girlhood across the diaspora.

In This Story

LaNitra M. Berger, PhD

Topics

Sojourner Truth Lecture

Women and Gender Studies

African and African American Studies

Campus News

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Women's History Month

Kakenya Ntaiya speaks her truth at Mason’s annual Sojourner Truth Lecture

Shayla Brown — Wed, 22 Mar 2023 18:51:25 +0000

Kakenya Ntaiya speaks her truth at Mason’s annual Sojourner Truth Lecture Shayla Brown Wed, 03/22/2023 - 14:51

In This Story

LaNitra M. Berger, PhD

Dr. Kakenya Ntaiya, guest speaker at ��AV's Sojourner Truth Lecture. Photo by Shayla Brown/Strategic Communications.

Kakenya Ntaiya’s life was set to follow the traditional Kenyan path of ending school early in preparation for marriage and motherhood at the age of 15, but she had a different dream.

Ntaiya, who was ��AV’s 2023 Sojourner Truth Lecture guest speaker on March 2, is the founder of Kakenya’s Dream, a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to educating and advocating for young girls across rural Kenya.

“I’m really grateful to be here as we are ending the celebration of Black History Month, and also welcoming Women’s History Month since they’re two of the entities that I have within me,” she said. “In communities like ours, you find that the place of a woman is pretty low.”

About 50 people were in attendance during the lecture. When Ntaiya was asked why it was so important for a Black feminist to also be committed to health, she responded, “Health is everything, especially mental health, but general health is everything.”

“I grew up in a community where about 40 percent of young girls between the age of 15 and 19 give birth, 50 percent are married off during childhood, 80 percent undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), often without anesthesia,” said Ntaiya, who also was subjected to the procedure in Kenya where it is considered a rite of passage to womanhood.

“I was lucky to survive because most girls die from bleeding,” she said. “There are consequences for the bodies of these young girls.”

Despite having been subjected to FGM, Ntaiya made a deal with her father to let her forgo marriage and finish her education, promising her rural Kenyan community that she would go to school in the United States and use her education to help the village in exchange for their support.

“The commitment that Kakenya has to supporting women and girls internationally is unparalleled,” said LaNitra Berger, director of Mason’s African and African American Studies Program. “I have so much respect for the organization that she runs, and the ways in which she is completely dedicated to the cause of women and girls’ education.”

Ntaiya said she was driven to make a difference to help end child marriage in Kenya, in the absence of intervention from NGOs or other aid organizations.

“The government of course had laws in Kenya [that said we're] not supposed to be married before 18, but those are just laws in the box that are not implemented,” said Ntaiya.

In addition to educating girls and women on various topics, Kakenya’s Dream also gives boys and men the tools to help them be allies for women battling cultural norms.

“They now speak out against the practices [of the past] and we have a better future with the younger generations now sensitized about the harm of FGM,” said Ntaiya. “Young men learning about this are going to marry a woman that is not cut, and that is where we start seeing the generational change that will break the norms that have been there thus far.”

Topics

Sojourner Truth Lecture

African and African American Studies

Guest Speaker

Access to Health Services

adolescent health

Women's Health

Women's History Month

Campus News

Author, activist Brian P. Jones talks about Black education in DuBois lecture

Shayla Brown — Thu, 23 Feb 2023 17:18:23 +0000

Author, activist Brian P. Jones talks about Black education in DuBois lecture Shayla Brown Thu, 02/23/2023 - 12:18

In This Story

LaNitra M. Berger, PhD

Dr. Brian P. Jones speaking at Mason's 2023 W.E.B. DuBois Lecture. Photo by Shayla Brown.

When Brian P. Jones was teaching in Harlem in the early 2000s, he fought against what he saw as a movement to privatize public education, which he feared would rip the rug out from the education of his almost all Black students.

“It got me thinking about patterns of Black education and how Black students themselves have so often challenged patterns of social engineering,” said Jones. “That's what brought me all the way back to Tuskegee; there was no book on that, so I wrote the book.”

His book, “The Tuskegee Student Uprising: A History,” was the focus of his talk as ��AV’s 2023 W.E.B. Du Bois Lecture Series guest speaker hosted by the African and African American Studies Program.

Jones is currently the director of the Center for Educators and Schools at the New York Public Library.

“[The series] invites noted national scholars to come and speak about their research on the Black experience, and how it connects to the legacy of Du Bois,” said LaNitra Berger, director of African and African American Studies Program. “As soon I saw Dr. Jones’s book, I knew that it was exactly the kind of book that we would want our students to read, and the kind of conversation we would want to have as a Mason community.”

Jones, whose father went to Tuskegee, conducted six years of research on the university and its students. He and his father took a road trip to the university to dig through some of the archives, he said.

Tuskegee arose after the overthrow of Reconstruction. “Reconstruction,” Jones said, “is interesting because we're looking at a moment of Black power whose effects are democracy, and actually are of great benefit to the majority White population.”

Du Bois called this “a moment in the sun,” said Jones. It is mentioned in Du Bois’s book, “Black Reconstruction: 1860-1880,” and references the time between slavery and Jim Crow.

“It was overthrown with violence, with terror, with intimidation, and murder. Schools that were built, were then burned,” said Jones. When Booker T. Washington founded the Tuskegee Institute as a teacher-training school in 1881, he downplayed the idea that Black people should fight for civil and political rights, and emphasized education, hard work, and land ownership instead.

As part of his talk, Jones shared photos that he took or found during his research. The images included student strikes from 1896 and 1903, and the statue of Booker T. Washington that greets visitors to the Tuskegee campus in Alabama that shows him holding the Veil of Ignorance over an enslaved person—some argue he is pulling it up, while others argue he is putting it down. He also shared photos of some of his interview subjects including the first Black woman elected student body president at Tuskegee, Gwen Patton.

“To me, Gwen Patton represents the political savvy of Tuskegee students whose radicalization and intellectual development was largely happening off campus. She would participate in sit-ins and other protests off campus before going back to class, said Jones.

Dr. Brian P. Jones signs copies of his book after the lecture. Photo by Shayla Brown.

During the question-and-answer portion of the lecture, a student asked Jones, “How did you feel while you were interviewing the student activist?”

“I talked to 21 former Tuskegee students and community members. I remember feeling a sense of pride that I was able to help them pass along a story that they held,” said Jones. “It’s little bit daunting to have somebody give to you something that's so important to them, and to try to do it justice.”

Du Bois touched many academic subjects including art history, education, politics, and sociology, said Berger. “His scope was so wide in terms of the ideas that he infused that naming the lecture after him allows us to invite scholars from almost any discipline.”

“There are many brilliant Black student movements across many campuses who aren’t just going to take the world as it is, they’re going to change it,” said Jones.

Topics

African and African American Studies

Guest Speaker

Campus News

African American/Black

Black African Heritage

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Supporting underserved graduate students focused on health equity research

Shayla Brown — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 19:24:51 +0000

Supporting underserved graduate students focused on health equity research Shayla Brown Tue, 12/06/2022 - 14:24

Photo by Getty Images

The Communicating Health Equity and Healing Justice Research Lab (CEHJ) came to life on ��AV’s campus in October 2021.

“It started out an all-Black women endeavor, but now it has expanded to Black and Brown men as well as alternative gender identity individuals,” said Akila Ka Ma’at, the director of the lab and core faculty member with Women and Gender Studies Program and the Communication Department.

The lab allows students to engage in the production of research projects and contribute to data collection efforts through an immersive experiential learning and training experience. Its members focus on the mental and reproductive health of Black women as well as identify factors related to internalized racism.

Ashley Dawson, who joined the lab as an undergraduate student, is getting her master’s in public health with a concentration in health promotion. She hopes to become a public health consultant as well as a program developer so she can provide health intervention for underserved communities.

“Currently, we’re working on the impact of the “Strong Black Woman” stigma on the birth outcomes in Black women,” said Dawson. “This allows us to address the intersectionality and social determinants that are either negatively or positively impacting prenatal health.”

Sahana Natarajan, who recently graduated from Rutgers Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, is currently working as Mason affiliate faculty in collaboration with the CEHJ research lab.

“Health communication was something I had never really done before. Despite that, Dr. Ma’at believed in my potential and went to great lengths to mentor me,” said Natarajan. “I’m still in the process of learning how to lead. I’m starting to lead my own projects.”

Natarajan is currently working on a pilot testing a survey to access racial stress and related factors among prenatal Black Women.

“This lab is really about team collaboration. Along with that, addressing health disparities. If that’s something that’s important to you, I think the lab will really benefit you in terms of increasing your abilities and your impact in the world,” she said.

Mason sociology student J Orisha is also a part of CEHJ and working on this project. “I think it’s important that there be more spaces like this for students. [My research interests have] honestly been changing the more involved I get on campus and meet more professors, but it’s centrally around African American/Black studies and anti-racist, decolonized research,” said Orisha.

“It’s an open environment where you mess up, great, you learn and keep moving. I never experienced that in the other schools,” Orisha said. “They’re actually trying to listen to their students. They really do care, and I really, really appreciate it.”

Ma’at hopes to collaborate with more disciplines and more community stakeholders. She wants the lab’s research to extend into the African diaspora and include immigrant communities in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area.

The CEHJ Research Lab meets on Tuesdays from 2-3 p.m. and Thursdays from 1:30-2:30 p.m. in Robeson Room 240A in the Johnson Center.

Topics

African and African American Studies

Women and Gender Studies

ARIE

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Research

Communication Department

Podcast - EP36: Charles Chavis: The truth will set you free

Damian Cristodero — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 14:39:43 +0000

Podcast - EP36: Charles Chavis: The truth will set you free Damian Cristodero Fri, 02/18/2022 - 09:39

In This Story

Gregory Washington

Charles Chavis

Charles Chavis, an assistant professor of conflict resolution and history, and director of African and African American studies at Mason, talks to Mason President Gregory Washington about his new book that explores the lynching of a young Black Man in Salisbury, Md., and how understanding his story and the Black experience in the United States can help find ways to fight anti-Black violence. Chavis also pushes for a National Truth and Reconciliation Program to give the country the chance to reset and “deal with the truth.”

Topics

��AV

Access to Excellence podcast

podcast

Podcast Episode

Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution

African and African American Studies

Sojourner Truth lecture to examine the power of politics and protest

Colleen Rich — Fri, 12 Feb 2021 17:38:42 +0000

Sojourner Truth lecture to examine the power of politics and protest Colleen Rich Fri, 02/12/2021 - 12:38

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, Aja Clark, and Yevette Richards Jordan

��AV’s annual Sojourner Truth Lecture features a conversation about the collaborative power of politics and protest in the pursuit of justice.

The event features Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, PhD, former chair of the Maryland Democratic Party, and Mason alumna Aja Clark, activist and reproductive justice educator. The discussion will be moderated by Yevette Richards Jordan, faculty member in Mason’s Department of History and Art History, the Women and Gender Studies Program, and African and African American Studies. The event takes place at 3 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 25. Individuals interested in attending the forum can register here.

Cummings is president and CEO of Global Policy Solutions, a Washington, D.C.-based policy firm. Clark, who graduated from Mason with a BA in 2017, is creative director and founder of the Black Feminist Freshman Orientation, which prepares women for college. As a reproductive justice educator, she also creates culturally appropriate workshops and videos on reproductive issues, such as self-advocacy at the doctor’s office.

“The purpose of the panel is to engage our students as the next generation of scholars and activists by having them hear from and interact with people engaged in politics and activism on the ground right now,” said David Powers Corwin, associate director of the Women and Gender Studies Program and one of the organizers of this year’s Sojourner Truth Event. “We want them to see women of color on the forefront of activism and politics.”

Jordan said that presenting activists at both the start of a career and further along will “hopefully be an inspiration by showing the possibilities for long-term political and activist engagement.”

In addition, the Prince William County Community Foundation will be honored at the event for its work on social justice, hunger and coronavirus-related issues.

“By presenting a local organization with this honor, we hope that students will see that activism is happening right in our backyard,” said Corwin.

While the discussion is open to the public, there will also be invitation-only events with students, faculty and staff.

Last year marked the 20^th anniversary of the lecture, as well as the 30^th anniversary of the creation of Mason’s Women and Gender Studies Program. The lecture was started as a celebration of both Black History Month and Women’s History Month. As such, it is held either in late February or early March.

Over the years, the even has featured Black female scholars and activists, such as Sybrina Fulton, Dorothy Roberts, and Anita Hill. This year marks the first time that the event will be held virtually, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The event is sponsored by the Women and Gender Studies Program, the African and African American Studies Program, University Life, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences Interdisciplinary Programs Fund.