Just Space Week Recording
Thank you to all those who attended Just Space Week. You can find recordings of all the sessions linked below.
Making Visible the Trinity College Industrial Indian Boarding School and the Origins of Duke University
Bishop Ortega G’20, Documentary Artist
Joined by:
Scarlett Guy T’22, Vice President, Native American Student Alliance
Darien Herndon T’21, President, Native American Student Alliance
Dr. Charlotte Davidson, (Diné/Three Affiliated Tribes – Mandan, Hidatsa, & Arikara), Independent Scholar
Moderated by: Kim Hewitt, Vice President for Institutional Equity and Chief Diversity Officer
Would Duke exist if not for the Cherokee Industrial Boarding School founded at Trinity College? While we have memorialized Braxton Craven, who established the school, what obligation do we have to acknowledge the land and children who made the move from Randolph County to Durham County possible? In this session, we engage these questions and explore how we might acknowledge the debt Duke owes to the 20 Cherokee children who allowed Duke University to exist.
Recording of Session
Keynote | Our Land: The Histories that Black and Indigenous Americans Share
Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery (she/her/hers), Director of the Center for the Study of the American South and Professor of History, UNC-Chapel Hill
Moderated by: Vivette Jeffries-Logan, Founder & Principal of Biwa Consulting
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
If we told American history truthfully, our story would include Black and Indigenous Americans who have already created the world we want to live in, a world of resilience, creativity, self-governance and shared purpose. In this keynote, Dr. Malinda Maynor Lowery will propose that we add these founding principles to our story and seeks to reveal a few of the episodes that illustrate them.
Recording of Session
Can Duke’s Next Residential Living and Learning Model Also Be Antiracist?
Linda Zhang (she/her/hers) T’20, Next Gen 2.0 Committee Co-Chair
Dr. John Blackshear (he/him/his), Dean of Students, Duke University & Next Gen 2.0 Committee Co-Chair
Mary Pat McMahon (she/her/hers), Vice Provost/Vice President of Student Affairs, Duke University
Dr. Gary Bennett (he/him/his) G’02, Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Duke University
Joined by:
Shrey Majmudar (he/him/his) T’22, Duke Student Government VP of Academic Affairs & Next Gen 2.0 Steering Committee Member
Zoe Tishaev T’24, Durham-Community Affairs Senator
Christina Wang T’22, DSG Vice President of Equity and Outreach & Next Gen 2.0 Committee Member
Moderated by:
Shelvis Lee Ponds, Jr. D’13, Duke Reach Representative, Dean of Students Office & Just Space Committee Member (2017 – 2019)
Sam Babb (she/her), Residence Coordinator & Just Space Committee Member (2017 – Present)
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
Duke Student Affairs and Undergraduate Education are reimagining Duke’s approach to living and learning on campus. They are engaging a wide range of stakeholders, but also taking a closer look at how residential spaces are used and whether any spaces need to be reworked. These decisions will impact over 17,000 students over the next decade, but the question remains: can residential living and learning at Duke also be spatially just or antiracist?
Recording of Session
Affordable Housing and the Future of Durham
Atinuke “Tinu” Diver (she/her/hers), Executive Director, Durham Congregations, Associations & Neighborhoods (Durham CAN)
Joined by:
Dr. Stelfanie Williams T’98 (she/her/hers), Vice President for Durham and Community Affairs
Rev. Breana van Velzen D’17 (they/them), Community Minister
Moderated by: Rev. Kathryn Lester-Bacon T’06, Director of Religious Life & Just Space Committee Member (2020- Present)
One of Durham’s defining crises of justice and inclusion is that of housing: affordable housing, evictions, gentrification, and ownership. In this session, we engage this complicated relationship between Duke and Durham around affordable housing, looking especially at the impact for communities of color and Durham’s long-term residents. What are the possibilities of creating more antiracist housing practices that allow all Durham residents to thrive.
Recording of Session
Building Justice through Architecture & Design
Toni L. Griffin (she/her), Professor in the Practice of Urban Planning, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Founder, Urban American City
Joined by: Dr. Andrew Whittemore, Associate Professor of City and Regional Planning, UNC-Chapel Hill
Moderated by: Mary Pat McMahon (she/her/hers), Vice Provost/Vice President of Student Affairs, Duke University
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
Architecture, design, and urban planning shape how, where, and in what way we interact with one another, and they are not morally neutral. Can you design and build a just city, or an antiracist city? In this session, we engage how we might come to measure the justice or injustice of a city and how we might look to build physical structures that generate equity and justice.
Recording of Session
Black Art as Resistance: Downtown Durham’s Public Art Following the Murder of George Floyd in the Summer of 2020
Anthony Patterson (he/him/his), Documentary Artist
Brittany Barbee (she/her/hers), Documentary Artist
Shay Hendricks (she/they), Documentary Artist
Joined by:
Zaire McPhearson G’20 (she/her/hers), Multi-Media Artist
Moderated by: Michael Betts II G’20 (he/him/his), Director, Continuing Education at the Center of Documentary Studies, Just Space Committee Member (2020 – Present)
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
Following the murder of George Floyd, many Black artists created public art in downtown Durham as a form of public protest and grief. In this session, we explore this story further and ask what is the role and power of art in creating more anti-racist space.
Recording of Session
Racial Equity in Digital Space
Dr. Nicki Washington, Professor of the Practice of Computer Science, Duke University
Joined by:
Dr. Miguel La Serna (he/his/him), Professor of History at the UNC-Chapel Hill (Miguel’s Bio)
Nicholas Richard-Craven T’24
Micalyn Struble T’22
Moderated by: Elmer Orellana (he/him/his), Assistant Director for Center of Multicultural Affairs & Just Space Committee Member (2018 – Present)
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
Digital technology has been the primary channel through which many of us have interacted with each other this year. But digital technology, computer science, and electrical engineering are historically white and male industries, and the products that we use are shaped by that legacy. They are not neutral. In this session, we explore how digital and online space and the industries that create them for us also requires a racial equity framework in envisioning a more just future.
Recording of Session
The State Against Mandela Film, Q&A with director Nicolas Champeaux and Ezra Ezzard, Founder and CEO of ARTIFICATION, in partnership with Tournées Film Festival, Duke Screen/Society, and Duke’s Center for French & Francophone Studies
You can find more information on the panelists and moderators here.
In signing up for this session you get access to the Vimeo Q & A will be with the director Nicolas Champeaux and distributor Ezra Ezzard on Friday, March 19 at 12:00 p.m. Additionally, the first 100 registrants will also get access to a viewing link for the film. Below is a description and trailer for The State Against Mandela and the Others.
In the historic Rivonia Trial of 1963 and 1964, Nelson Mandela took center stage. Yet, there were eight others who, like him, faced the death sentence for daring to challenge South Africa’s apartheid regime. Unreleased and recently recovered archival recordings are brought to life via beautiful hand-drawn animation that transports us back in time into the intensity of the courtroom proceedings. United, they stood firm and set in motion a series of events that inspired future generations. Now, contemporary interviews with the surviving defendants family members, including Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, as they listen to the audio files some 50 years later further bring the past into the blazingly relevant present. (It was one of the last projects in which Winnie Mandela would participate before her passing.)
“Absorbing, surprisingly inventive… Weaving the reflections of those still alive into an artful fusion of recently excavated archive audio and atmospheric interpretive animation, the film brings emotive, enlightening perspective.” – Guy Lodge, Variety
Recording of Session
