Michigan State University is pleased to welcome the return of a time-honored event to campus this year. Race in 21st Century Americas is a biennial event hosted by James Madison College that began in 1999 under the leadership of its founder Professor Emeritus Curtis Stokes, who retired from James Madison in 2019 after 36-years of scholarship and teaching.

This year’s conference is a hybrid event that will take place March 25 and 29-30 with an in-person student seminar day occurring from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. on March 25 in the MSU Union. The keynote speaker and featured guests will present virtually for conference attendees on March 29-30.

The Race Conference brings together leading scholars and community activists from around the nation with diverse racial, ethnic and ideological approaches, in order to have important conversations about race. Under Stokes’ leadership, scholars, policy makers and activists such as Ronald Takaki, Cornel West, Michelle Alexander, Patricia Hill Collins, Charles Mills and Rashida Tlaib have visited campus to lend their expertise on important race-related issues.

To continue the conference’s legacy, Rashida Harrison, assistant professor of social relations and policy in James Madison, assumed the chairperson role in 2019 and quickly established a university-wide planning committee. In addition to articulating the conference’s vision and selecting the next conference theme, the group decided to broaden the scope of the conference to the Americas, rather than the singular America. The theme for the 2022 conference is “Race and Rights: Empowering Our Communities.”

“Madison is proud to have the Race Conference continue under Dr. Harrison’s leadership. She and Dr. Stokes worked together closely for many years; Dr. Harrison knows the conference’s history and has the vision to see its potential,” said Cameron Thies, dean and MSU Foundation Professor in James Madison.

For more information on the event, visit jmc.msu.edu