The Arc Toward Justice Taking Stock One Year After George Floyd’s Death
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A special Westminster Town Hall Forum series on racial justice this May. |
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The killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis while in police custody sent shockwaves across the globe. In the months that followed, millions of people marched for racial justice. Calls and promises for change came in almost every sector of American life.
Nearly a year later, what has changed? Have we answered the calls for systemic change? Have we helped to bend the arc of the moral universe any closer toward justice?
Today, the Westminster Town Hall Forum is announcing a special series of talks by racial justice leaders we hope will address those questions and more.
We are calling the series “The Arc Toward Justice: Taking Stock One Year After George Floyd’s Death.”
With generous support from the Minneapolis Foundation, we will host four talks in a single month, all by nationally recognized voices in the pursuit of racial justice. There will be a new program each Tuesday in May culminating on May 25, the one-year anniversary of George Floyd’s death.
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May 4: Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker
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May 11: Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago
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May 18: Deborah Archer, the newly elected and first BIPOC president of the American Civil Liberties Union
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May 25: Angela Harrelson and Paris Stevens, George Floyd’s aunt and cousin, alongside Ben Crump, the lawyer for the family.
Each talk will go online on the Forum website ( www.WestminsterForum.org) at noon CST on the Tuesday date listed. They will also be broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio at noon CST and again at 9 p.m. CST on those dates. The talks will remain available on the Westminster Forum website for anyone to watch or listen to after their initial broadcast.
We would like to thank the Minneapolis Foundation for being the presenting sponsor of these talks. We would also like to thank the Pohlad Family Foundation for supporting production of these talks. And we thank Minnesota Public Radio for recording and broadcasting these important programs.
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Jelani Cobb
Policing, Protest, and Power
Award-winning writer for The New Yorker on issues of race, history, justice, and politics. His recent documentary with FRONTLINE, Policing the Police 2020 examines the enormous complexities and realities of race and policing in America. A previous iteration of that investigation in 2016 earned Cobb the Walter Bernstein Award from the Writer’s Guild of America.
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Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III
Life, Liberation, and Community
Senior Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. For two decades, he has preached a Black theology that unapologetically calls attention to the problems of mass incarceration, environmental justice, and economic inequality. Dr. Moss led the team that came up with the “My Life Matters” curriculum, including the viral video “Get Home Safely: 10 Rules of Survival,” created in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death at the hands of police.
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Deborah Archer
Race, Civil Rights, and the Law
Deborah Archer was elected in 2021 as the eighth President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and is the first person of color to lead that organization in its over 100-year history. She is a Professor of Clinical Law at the New York University School of Law as well as faculty director of the Law School’s Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law.
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Angela Harrelson, Paris Stevens
and Ben Crump
Changing the World, One Year Later
On the anniversary of George Floyd’s death, we will hear from three people with a connection to George Floyd and his legacy. Angela Harrelson and Paris Stevens are the aunt and cousin of George Floyd. After the passing of his mother, Floyd moved to Minneapolis three years ago to be closer to Harrelson and to build a new life. Before her nephew’s death, she felt people didn’t want to talk about racism, even in progressive cities like Minneapolis. “What happened to George changed people’s hearts,” she said. Ben Crump is the lawyer for the Floyd Family. He has worked with or represented many families of people of color killed at the hands of police. He has been recognized as one of the Top 100 Lawyers by The National Trial Lawyers Association and one of Ebony Magazine’s Power 100 Most Influential African Americans.
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WATCH
PARTICIPATE
LISTEN
Audio will broadcast on the news stations of Minnesota Public Radio (91.1fm in Twin Cities).
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Support the Forum
The Westminster Town Hall Forum is free and open to all thanks to donors like you. If you are able, consider supporting the Town Hall Forum. Visit:
QUESTIONS
Contact Tane Danger at 612.540.2945 or
tdanger@westminsterforum.org.
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