#SalonatStowe: Meet the Featured Guests!

Tonight, join us for "Policing the Police: How Can Communities Transform Law Enforcement?"another Salon at Stowe program.

Leading the discussion will be Bishop John Selders and David McGuire. Meet them below!

Bishop John Selders 

The Right Reverend Doctor John L. Selders, Jr. is the Associate Chaplain at Trinity College as well as an ordained minister serving in the United Church of Christ, and the Organizing Pastor of Amistad United Church of Christ, Hartford, CT. Bishop Selders has done his academic and theological reflection attending Life Christian Bible College, Webster University, Eden Theological Seminary and Anglican Divinity School. In addition to being a talented award winning songwriter, musician and performer with local, national, and international credits, he is also the Bishop Presider of The Inter-Denominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries (ICLCM) and is the Co-Convening Bishop of The Sacred College of Progressive Episcopates (SCPE). 

Bishop Selders has exhibited extraordinary commitment and dedication to a number of efforts affording him the opportunity to travel across the country speaking, lecturing and conducting workshops in the areas of race, anti-racism and internalized oppression. He serves on a number of boards and works with several organizations both locally and nationally whose work is ultimately concerned with the healing of humanity.​ He is one of the founders and leaders of Moral Monday CT, an activist and turn-up group an issues of racial justice and Black Lives Matter in CT.


David McGuire  

David McGuire is the Interim Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of CT. McGuire joined the ACLU-CT in 2007. His primary areas of legal interest are prisoner rights, digital privacy and free speech issues. He has also taken a leading role in pressing for police accountability legislation and was instrumental in passing laws to reform police complaint procedures and police use of Tasers. McGuire received his B.A. in history from Purdue University in 2003 and graduated cum laude from Western New England College School of Law in 2006. After law school, he clerked for the judges of the Connecticut Superior Court. 

What will you ask the featured guests? Share in the comments below!

#SalonatStowe: Meet the Featured Guests

Tonight, join the Stowe Center for a conversation on protests and social movements. Leading the conversation will be featured guests, David Canton and Jeffrey Ogbar. Read all about them below!

David Canton

David Canton in an Associate Professor of History and Director of the Africana Studies Program at Connecticut College. David Canton believes that African-American urban history illustrates the impact of racism, classism, and sexism in the black community. It also provides insight to the origins of 20th century black urban poverty, civil rights struggle, black class formation, and black community development.

David Canton's latest book, Raymond Pace Alexander: A New Negro Lawyer Fights for Civil Rights in Philadelphia, was published in May, 2010, by the University Press of Mississippi. The book has been awarded the 2011 W.E.B. Du Bois Book Prize from the Northeast Black Studies Association.

Canton was the Jacob and Linda Blaustein Assistant Professor of History and in 2009 was promoted to Associate Professor. From 2009-2012, he served as Director of the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity and as Co-Director of the Mellon Mays Fellows Program. He is the POSSE 5 faculty mentor and in 2014-2015 served as chair of the History Department.

Professor Canton has received the following awards: Tempel Summer Institute, Connecticut College (Summer 2004), National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Institute, African American Struggle For Civil Rights 1877-1965 (Summer 2003), Temple University Dissertation Completion Grant, 2000-2001. 

Jeffrey Ogbar

Jeffrey Ogbar is a Professor of History and Director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music. Jeffrey Ogbonna Green Ogbar was born in Chicago and raised in Los Angeles, California. He received his BA in History from Morehouse College in Atlanta (’91). He earned his MA (’93) and Ph.D. (’97) in U.S. History with a minor in African studies from Indiana University in Bloomington. Since 1997 he has taught at the University of Connecticut’s Department of History. From 2003-2009 he served as the Director of the Institute for African American Studies. He served as Associate Dean for the Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences from 2009-2012. In June 2012 he was named the University’s Vice Provost for Diversity. In 2014 he became founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Music.

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar’s research interests include the 20th century United States with a focus in African American history. More specifically, Dr. Ogbar studies black nationalism and radical social protest. He has developed courses, lectured and published articles on subjects as varied as Pan-Africanism, African American Catholics, civil rights struggles, black nationalism and hip-hop. Prof. Ogbar has held fellowships at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, where he completed work on his book, Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity. He also held fellowships at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City, and the Africana studies program at the University of Miami where he conducted research for his book Hip-Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap. His latest book is an edited volume, The Harlem Renaissance Revisited: Politics, Arts and Letters.

Along with research and teaching, Dr. Ogbar has enjoyed his role as the advisor to numerous student organizations, as well as working in various community service projects. 

The Salon will begin at 5:30 PM with a social half-hour and the conversation will start at 6:00 PM. What do you plan to ask the featured guests? Let us know in the comments below! 

#StoweSyllabus: What We're Reading This Week

Articles and current events that got us thinking over the week!

Terror lynching in America
Equal Justice Initiative with illustrations by Molly Crabapple, October 11, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS61QFzk2tI&feature=youtu.be

Indian resistance and Thanksgiving declarations
November 17, 2014, Howardzinn.com
http://howardzinn.org/indian-resistance-thanksgiving-declarations/

Rethinking history class on Columbus Day
Melinda Anderson, October 12, 2015, The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/10/columbus-day-school-holiday/409984/

Abolish Columbus Day resources and tools
October 2016, Zinn Education Project 
http://www.teachingforchange.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/ZEP_AbolishColumbusDay_Packet.pdf

Racist objects: A painful past still present
Logan Jaffe, October 6, 2016, The New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/10/06/us/race-related-confronting-racist-objects.html?emc=edit_rr_20161006&nl=race-related&nlid=74255697&te=1 

What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comments below!