Voices for Change: Voting, Advocacy and Action

This project was made possible in part due to funding from the Diversity Innovation Grant Program coordinated by the Office of the Provost and Intercultural Center at Monmouth University.

Additional Sessions

3. The Strengths of Black Families – November 16, 2021

Denise McLane-Davison

The political era of the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Gay Rights, and The Black Power Movement demanded the inclusion of rigorous research that centered racial and gender identity as significant narratives. The emergence of Black Studies and Women’s Studies, along with student-led and national organizations incorporating the same identity politics also demanded inclusion in intellectual landscapes. During this era Black social scientists blanketed the scholarship, theory, and treatment research that anchored African cultural values, traditions, knowledge, and generational behaviors as disruptive characteristics of pathologized Black family rhetoric. Collectively, cultural scholarship named the impact of adapting Black life to oppression and anti-Blackness policy. They declared the Black family as the fundamental source of strength of the Black community and as the defense for Black life from external threats. This session provides a historical and contemporary alignment on the Black strength perspective through racial pride, resistance, and resilience.

Dr. Denise McLane-Davison, associate professor of social work, at Morgan State University, utilizes Black Feminist/Womanist/Africana (BFWA) epistemologies to center the restoration of human dignity and worth. Dr. McLane-Davison’s research disrupts systems of structural oppression, while focusing on innovative strategies towards transformation, reconciliation, and liberation. Dr. McLane-Davison is a visual storyteller utilizing cultural memory intentional centering of African diasporic history and culture in the digital humanities genre to provide an interdisciplinary and intergenerational knowledge bank for public and academic scholars through her training in Black Digital Humanities (BDH)and Black Spatial Humanities. She is the founding researcher and archivist of the National Association of Black Social Workers, Inc. (NABSW) National Repository at Morgan State University and the recipient of The HistoryMakers, Inc. 2020 National Digital Humanities Award, as well as the 2020 Faculty Women of Color in The Academy Zenobia L. Hikes Teaching-Research National Award Winner, and a newly appointed member of the Commission on Research, Council on Social Work Education.

4. Supporting Systems and Communities in Achieving Racial Equity: A Groundwater Analysis – December 2, 2021

Joyce James

In this presentation, Ms. James will share her journey in developing the Texas Model for addressing Disproportionality and Disparities and the Groundwater Analysis for Addressing Racial Inequities© as the foundation for creating antiracist organizational cultures for undoing institutional and structural racism and improving outcomes for all populations. Participants will gain an increased understanding of the importance of cross systems collaborations and building partnerships with poor communities of color to remove the barriers that contribute to racial inequities. The session will include discussion of the pitfalls of well-meaning and well-intentioned leaders, who in isolation of an analysis of institutional and structural racism, and a racial equity lens, continue to unconsciously contribute to sustaining and often perpetuating racial inequities in the design and delivery of programs and services.