'Blackness When You Least Expect It'

EVANSTON, Ill. --- “Blackness When You Least Expect It: Understanding Racial Diversity in the 21st Century” is the subject of a Tuesday, Oct. 8, by Northwestern University faculty member Michelle Wright tackling thorny questions about “blackness” and black identity.

Wright, associate professor of African American studies, will speak at 7 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room in the main Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave. Her lecture is part of the annual Evanston Northwestern Humanities Lecture Series, a collaboration of the University’s Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and Evanston Public Library.

“There is no such thing as a “black gene” nor one thing that links all black people across the globe,” Wright says. “Before the 18th century, blackness as a racial identity didn’t exist --meaning blackness is an historical invention that came out of Europe.”

For further information about Wright’s lecture, contact Beverly Zeldin-Palmer at (847) 467-3970.