2021 HRC Annual Dinner and Mayor's Celebration of Diversity Awards

Date: Nov 12, 2021

Time: 7:00 PM

Location(s):

Ballrooms

With Keynote Speaker Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad

Widely known as one of the most influential authorities on racial justice in America, Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is redefining our understanding of diversity, with his work featured in the likes of the New York Times’ landmark 1619 Project, and Ava DuVernay’s 13th. As a Harvard Kennedy School Professor of History, Race, and Public Policy, he explains how “bias education”—race education—can help individuals and institutions reconcile the past within the present, and move towards greater equity, together.

Dr. Muhammad is the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime and the Making of Modern Urban America, which won the John Hope Franklin Best Book Award in American Studies. He is an expert on American race relations, where we’ve come from, and just how far we have to go. In his illuminating, informative keynotes, Dr. Muhammad explores the next steps necessary to fighting racism, and offers practical solutions for a more equitable future for all our children, regardless of the color of their skin.

Dr. Muhammad is the former Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, a division of the New York Public Library and the world’s leading library and archive of global black history. Much of his research focuses on racial criminalization in modern U.S. history. His work has been featured in a number of national print and broadcast media outlets, including The New York Times—notably as one of the contributors to its’ viral 1619 Project, which explores and exposes the true history of slavery in America—The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, and MSNBC. Muhammad was an associate editor of The Journal of American History and prior Andrew W. Mellon fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice. He holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University, two honorary doctorates, and is on the board of The Museum of Modern Art, The Barnes Foundation, and The Nation magazine.

To make reservations, contact the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Human Relations Commission at (812) 436-4927 or email to hrc@evansville.in.gov. For more event information, visit the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Human Relations Commission website.