The WVU Faculty Senate Inclusion and Diversity Committee will host its next virtual Social Justice Summit from 1-4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 11, via Zoom. These summits are a continuing series of events to address racism and racial injustice.
Part of a continuing series of events addressing racism and racial injustice, this summit, “Connecting Lived Experience to Action,” will focus on Narratives and Black Voices, exploring the question of “What happens when stories are silenced, taken out of context, and/or misunderstood?”
The featured speaker and facilitator is Alissa Rae Funderburk, a graduate of the Oral History Master’s Program at Columbia and the Oral Historian for the Margaret Walker Center at the HBCU Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. She maintains an oral history archive dedicated to the preservation, interpretation, and dissemination of African American history and culture.
Performance artist Doris A. Fields will also join the Summit. Fields is a native West Virginian, a professional vocalist, actor and songwriter. She has toured her one-woman show, "The Lady and the Empress," a musical stage play based on the life and music of blues legend Bessie Smith. In 2008, her song "Go Higher" was chosen as the best Obama Inaugural Song.
The event is free and open to the University community. If you have or know of an experience you'd like to share, please indicate that on the registration page. It is possible to share your story anonymously.
Find the agenda and link to register for the Social Justice Summit.
The Inclusion and Diversity Committee hopes to connect these stories to policy recommendations in a report to be issued to the Senate Faculty Committee in May.