Friday, February 6, 3-4:30 pm EST
Critical Conversations on Reproductive Health/Care: Past, Present, and Future
Full conference schedule and registration here,
Keynote Discussion of Revolutionary Mothering: Love on the Frontlines, edited by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Mai’a Williams, and China Martens
Featuring
Victoria Law, freelance journalist and author
Kellee Coleman, organizer with Vibrant Woman/Mama Sana prenatal clinic
Tanay Lynn Harris, co-founder of the Bloom Collective Baltimore
Cecilia Caballero, PhD Candidate at the University of Southern California
China Martens, organizer, editor, and author
Mai’a Williams, journalist, organizer, editor, and author
Jessica Marie Johnson, Assistant Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University
Saturday, February 13, 11 am CST
Women’s Prison Book Project: Brunch and Learn
Sadly, the pandemic means that the amazing Women’s Prison Book Project will be unable to hold its annual pancake breakfast fundraiser. But you can still support their efforts to send books to incarcerated women across the nation–and virtually brunch with me, my amazing co-author Maya Schenwar, Susan Burton (founder of A New Way of Life), and Keri Blakinger (reporter extraordinaire at The Marshall Project).
For more info and to register, go here.
Friday, February 26, 3 pm EST
Resistance in the Materials: A Gathering of Printers Pressing for Change
Full schedule and registration here.
Co-sponsored by Santa Clara University’s Center for Arts and Humanities and the University of Maryland’s BookLab and Center for Literary and Comparative Studies, “Resistance in the Materials” is a bicoastal event that will center BIPOC artists, scholars, and interventionists (and allies) and celebrate “printing” (broadly construed across many media) as an accessible form of activism capable of leaving its own unique impressions in diverse communities.
This two-day program begins with a plenary panel featuring Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Jonathan Senchyne on Thursday February 25th at 12pm PT/3pm ET. On Friday, February 26th at 12pm PT/3pm ET, there will be a roundtable of four print artists including Victoria Law, Sarah Matthews, Amy Suo Wu, and Rio Yanez. Hearkening to the immediacy and impact of mail art, our participants have exchanged a “print” with each other as an anchor point for collaborative reflection and discussion of the possibilities of printing as political action. Following the roundtable, we will host a community print mixer for attendees to share their own prints and conversation about book arts and materiality in an informal virtual setting.
To continue the activist energy of the event after its conclusion, there will be a print postal exchange that participants can register for.
Saturday, February 27, 3 pm EST
Resurrecting Ruby: A Modern Retelling
Join us for a conversation about a forgotten *trial of the 20th century* that highlighted the criminalization of Black women’s survival.
Registration link here.
On August 3, 1952, in Live Oak, Florida, a Southern town of 4,000 people, Ruby McCollum shot and killed her lover, Dr. C. LeRoy Adams. McCollum was a 43 year old married Black woman and Adams was a prominent white physician. Her trial rivaled some of our modern legal circuses.
Renowned writer Zora Neale Hurston was dispatched by the Pittsburgh Courier to cover the McCollum trial. Today, the memory of this incident has faded from public consciousness.
In a new zine, Victoria Law describes the case. Also included are Zora Neale Hurston’s impressions of the trial. Resurrecting Ruby contextualizes Ruby’s story within a legacy of how Black women have been unfairly treated within U.S. society. It raises the question of whether Ruby’s actions were justified as self-defense and asks if she might have been criminalized for survival.
The publication was designed by neta bomani, the cover art was created by Rachel Marie Crane-Williams, and Kayla LeGrand provided research support. The project was conceived by Mariame Kaba and she wrote the foreword.
The zine can be downloaded here: https://issuu.com/projectnia/docs/resurrecting-ruby-pages__1_
Join neta bomani, Victoria Law, Kayla Le Grand, and Mariame Kaba for an afternoon conversation about Ruby, her case, and zinemaking.
We invite you to bring a cup of tea and some snacks for the conversation.
ACCESS: This event will include live closed captioning. Please email niapoetry@gmail.com for any accessibility questions.
