Redevelopment of Norris University Center’s East Lawn to begin this summer
April 5, 2024
Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors will speak at Northwestern University Thursday evening (Jan. 24) as part of the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities’ annual Dialogue series, which is themed “Security.”
Cullors will discuss her book, “When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir,” a New York Times bestseller, in conversation with professor E. Patrick Johnson, chair of the department of African American studies and the Carlos Montezuma Professor of African American Studies and Performance Studies at Northwestern.
The event will take place from 5 to 6:30 p.m., Thursday, at Norris University Center, Louis Room (#205), 1999 Campus Drive, Evanston. It is free and open to the public, but registration is required via Norris ticketing.
“Cullors is one of the most important figures of her generation. She and the two other co-founders of Black Lives Matter have given rise to the most important social justice movement of our current political moment,” Johnson said. “She is a role model for our students who are doing similar activist work. I am excited to welcome her to Northwestern.”
Four years after Cullors helped ignite the movement with a tweet, Black Lives Matter has grown into an extensive network of chapters combating racism and violence against African Americans around the globe.
This talk is part of the 2018-19 SECURITY Dialogues, a year-long conversation about struggles over security from humanistic perspectives, presented by the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities in partnership with multiple Northwestern departments and programs.
“This year’s theme is security, which allows the campus community to think together about when security is an unequivocal ethical good (as in bio-security which tries to protect populations from disease) and when inequities or injustices are perpetuated in its name,” said Wendy Wall, director of the Kaplan Institute and the Avalon Professor of the Humanities. “I am excited that the Kaplan Institute can sponsor a set of events that collectively explore political activism, racial struggle, nationality, history and aesthetics.”
About Patrisse Cullors: In 2013, Cullors co-founded the global movement with the viral Twitter hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. An artist, organizer, educator and popular public speaker,
Cullors is a Los Angeles native and co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Global Network. She also is founder of the grassroots Los Angeles-based organization Dignity and Power Now.
Cullors has been honored with various awards, including The Sydney Peace Prize Award (2017); Black Woman of the Year Award (2015) from The National Congress of Black Women; Civil Rights Leader for the 21st Century Award (2015) from the Los Angeles Times; Community Change Agent Award (2016) from BLACK GIRLS ROCK!, Inc.; Women of the Year Award for the Justice Seekers Award (2016) from Glamour, and ESSENCE’s first-ever Woke Award.
She is currently a 2019 MFA candidate at the University of Southern California and a senior fellow at MomsRising, a grassroots advocacy organization focused on issues affecting mother, children and families. There, Cullors is working to end maternal mortality and morbidity.
