A Critical Conversation with Michelle Alexander

UIC welcomes Michelle Alexander as our 2022 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. commemoration speaker. Join us on Tuesday, January 18, 2022, at 3pm CST. This event will be hybrid: the speaker will be virtual and aspects of the program will be in person.

Michelle Alexander | The New York Times Best-Selling Author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

Michelle brings audiences profoundly necessary and meaningful insights on the practice of mass incarceration that plagues the U.S. justice system, as well as eye-opening conversation on how we can end racial caste in America.

In her acclaimed best-seller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle peels back the curtain on systemic racism in the American prison system, which the New York Review of Booksdescribed as “striking in the intelligence of her ideas, her powers of summary, and the force of her writing.” With equal force and candor on stage, she breaks the silence about racial injustice in the modern legal system to reveal how mass incarceration has come to replace segregation.

Michelle, a legal scholar, social justice advocate, columnist at The New York Times and visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, explores the myths surrounding our criminal justice system from a racial and ethical standpoint, and offers solutions for combating this epidemic. Delivering an emphatic wake-up call from the “colorblind slumber” that our country has fallen under, she leaves audiences with a new perspective on the challenges facing the civil rights community and a rousing call-to-action for a multi-racial, multi-ethnic human rights movement for justice in America.

This event will be hybrid, ASL and real-time captions will be provided.  For access information, contact Accessible@uic.edu or (312) 725-2793.  To register, visit http://go.uic.edu/MLKAlexander.

“We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there "is" such a thing as being too late. This is no time for apathy or complacency. This is a time for vigorous and positive action.”― Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.