Wake Forest creates new center to study the African American experience, engage the community | Wake Forest News – Wake Forest University News Center

Hicks said the Center grew out of a conversation between him and Wake Forest President Nathan O. Hatch.

Derek Hicks

President Hatch said initiatives like the Slavery, Race and Memory Project and the Presidents Commission on Race, Equity and Community are demonstrative of the Universitys commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, Hicks said. The Center arises from a simultaneous reckoning of the Universitys history and a commitment to create a way for Wake Forest and the Winston-Salem community to engage in critical dialogue.

Interdisciplinary in scope, the Center will offer events on and off campus. For example, Hicks has begun conversations with Goldie Smith Byrd, director of Wake Forest School of Medicines Maya Angelou Center for Health Equity, and with pastors, community leaders and local organizers about future events and ways the University can partner with them.

I intend for the Center to buttress those opportunities for cooperative engagement and programming, he said. It should not be just a reactive set of research initiatives and programming because another atrocity has been experienced by Black people, but rather, it should be a proactive, ongoing, progressive engagement.

The Center, in conjunction with The Wake Forest University Humanities Institute, is sponsoring a lecture by Gaye Theresa Johnson, from 5-6:30 p.m. on Feb. 23 titled Worlds of Interconnection: Freedom-Making in the New Security Establishment. Johnson is an associate professor, Department of African American Studies and Department of Chicana/o Studies at UCLA.

Public Health and Black Communities will be the Centers theme for the upcoming 2021-2022 academic year. An anticipated fall conference will focus on pre-existing health issues and the effects of COVID-19 on Black communities. Also planned are symposiums focusing on food access and culture, mass incarceration and redlining, Hicks said. The Center will also sponsor essay contests for high school students, based upon the current years theme.

We will be intentional about learning from our neighbors as we work collaboratively with them to create relevant, mutually beneficial programming, Hicks said.

Corey D.B. Walker, Wake Forest Professor of the Humanities and inaugural director of the Universitys African American Studies Program, which launches this fall, said the Center and his program will complement each other.

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Wake Forest creates new center to study the African American experience, engage the community | Wake Forest News - Wake Forest University News Center