Freedom dreams freedom now University of Illinois at Chicago

Exploring what we are for not just what we are against

23
UIC
African American Academic Network
Asian American Studies Program, LAS
Centers for Cultural Understanding and Social Change
Center for Global Health, COM
Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Blacks
College of Architecture, Design, & the Arts (CADA)
College of Education
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS)
College of Medicine (COM)
College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs (CUPPA)
Department of African American Studies, LAS
Gender and Women’s Studies Program, LAS
The Graduate College
Great Cities Institute, CUPPA
The Honor’s College
Institute for the Humanities, LAS
Institute for Policy and Civic Engagement, CUPPA
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy, CUPPA
Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research,
Jane Addams College of Social Work
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, CADA
Latin American and Latino Studies Program, LAS
Office of Diversity
Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
School of Public Health
TRIO Program
Community Partners and Collaborators
Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College
Bertha Social Justice Institute – Center for Constitutional Rights
Black Youth Project (BYP 100)
The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, University of Chicago
Chicago Freedom School
Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ)
Department of African American Studies, Northwestern University
Freedom University
The Mansfield Institute for Social Justice and Transformation,
Roosevelt University
Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE DC)
Project NIA
Project South
The Public Square a program of the Illinois Humanities Council
Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI)
Conference Partners & Supporters

3
Going Beyond What Movements are ‘Against’ to What They are ‘For’
Freedom Dreams Freedom Now asks the following questions: What language
do we have that reflects the kind of world we want to live in? Is there a rubric
under which “a” movement can rally today? What are the components of a
shared analysis of this moment, what is needed, what is possible and how?
What are new slogans, texts, terms that help us forge a collective analysis?
What are the freedom dreams of this generation of activists?
Freedom Dreams Freedom Now is an intergenerational gathering of scholars,
artists and activists commemorating the 50th Anniversary of Freedom Summer
1964 and mapping the landscape of contemporary social justice work.
We will engage in political and analytical quilting to connect different debates,
communities and movements.
The conference format will be creative, engaging, accessible & interactive.
Conference Venue: Student Center West (SCW), University of Illinois at Chicago
(UIC) — 828 S. Wolcott Street (see map on page 31)
please check conference website for updates and full bios of participants
chicagofreedomsummer.org
Logistical Information
• A shuttle will transport conferees from Club Quarters hotel to conference
site & back each day and to and from the cultural event and dinner Thursday
evening at Alhambra ($10 - $20 for dinner and party) and Friday evening
to the Silver Room (Friday eve. event is free).
• Youth track available for children (ages 6 – 12, upon request).
• Translation and sign language provided (please notify us of need).
• Tweeting is encouraged #FDFN2014 @sji_uic
• Photo, quilt and art displays will be at the conference site, please take time
to experience them.
• Mary Scott Boria will preside over a quilters corner to help us craft a
freedom quilt during the conference. Please participate.
• Box lunches are available Thursday and Friday in lobby for nominal fee
($5-$10). Make your choices at registration.
• Gender-neutral restrooms available.
Concept and Overview
Watch a Live Stream of the Conference: chicagofreedomsummer.org/live
Like our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/UICSocialJustice
Follow us on Twitter @Sji_uic & tweet #FDFN2014 to join the conversation!
Follow us on Instagram: SocialJustice_uic; post & tag your pics #FDFN2014

45Art & Creative Collaborations
“Freedom Quilts”, Gail Anne Johnson Mitchell
A retired New Jersey public school teacher, Gail Anne Johnson Mitchell uses
quilting as a way to document African-American history. Her quilts engage
and embrace audiences from young adults to senior citizens. On display at
the Freedom Dreams Freedom Now conference are the quilts “Tribute to
Ella,” “Black and White,” and “Tribute to August Wilson.”
“Roots of My Resistance: Mississippi 1965-1967”, Maria Varela
One of Maria Varela’s roles as a SNCC member included photographing
marches as a way to protect protestors from violence. These photographs
are important documents of the Civil Rights Movement. They are an enduring
testament to the power of people to come together to change our society in
the search for freedom, dignity and social justice.
“Love and Struggle”, Sarah Jane Rhee
Photographer Sarah Jane Rhee has been participating in and covering social
movements in Chicago for some time. Her photographs are an important
record of social struggle. They are also beautiful and have inspired a lot of
conversation in Chicago around the issues the images depict. Collectively,
they also demonstrate the importance of struggle as a source of solidarity &
love as people come together to fight for, and not just against, something.
“Planting and Maintaining a Perennial Garden VI”, Faheem Majeed
This work is part of an ongoing series utilizing cedar wood panels based
on the 1930’s New Bauhaus designed wood paneling of the South Side
Community Art Center’s Margaret Burroughs Gallery. In commemoration
of Freedom Summer 1964, the “Perennial Garden” will take the form of 13
soap boxes placed outside the main entrance of SCW encouraging the use
of this space as a stage for performances, speeches, and congregating.
“Our Freedom Dreams” Collective Canvas
On April 26th, 2014, UIC’s Latino Cultural Center, Jane Addams Hull-House
Museum, and Social Justice Initiative invited people to come together to
“unleash their radical imagination.” Noting that, “With the power of art
and community, we can draw upon our diverse experiences and identities to
share collective creative solutions,” this collective canvas was the result.
“Freedom Dreams,” at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
Hull-House reformers of the Progressive era shaped an emerging vision
for democracy emphasizing the importance of freedom and play. Today,
we asked civil rights leaders, artists, scholars, workers, and activists to
contemplate on: “What is freedom?” and “When in your life have you
felt the most free?” Use the provided postcards to add your voice. Your
completed postcard will be displayed in the exhibit “Unfinished Business: The
Right to Play” currently at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
Musical and spoken word artists as listed in the program

5
4:00 – 6:00 p.m. Registration table open at conference site lobby for pre-
registered participants: 828 S. Wolcott, second floor. Confirmation of lunch
and dinner should be made at the registration table.
6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Opening Plenary
Thompson Room, Student Center West (SCW)
Welcome
Slide show of Civil Rights images (courtesy of Maria Varela)
Vocal opening by Avery Young, “Mississippi Goddamn”
Reflections on Freedom Summer
with Civil Rights Activists from 1964
Keynote
Julian Bond, co-founder of SNCC, first President of the Southern Poverty Law
Center, and former board chair of the NAACP.
Introduction of Julian Bond by Joe Hoereth, Director of Institute for Policy
and Civic Engagement at UIC
Interlude
Young Chicago Authors’ poets from the Team Englewood Community
Academy: Alicia Hinton, David Holmes, Dallas Battle, Kenyatta Tolbert
Roundtable Conversation
Freedom Summer Participants & SNCC veterans Julian Bond, Zoharah
Simmons, Dottie Zellner, Peter Orris, Fannie Rushing, Charlie Cobb, and
Maria Varela
Moderator: Barbara Ransby, Professor & Director of Social Justice Initiative
A short suite of “Freedom Songs” by one of Chicago’s most gifted vocalists,
Ms. Dee Alexander (7:45 – 8:05 p.m.)
8:30 – 10:00 p.m. Film Screening
Thompson Room, SCW
Chicago premiere of PBS documentary, “Freedom Summer,” by award-
winning filmmaker, Stanley Nelson (112 min)
Tweet your thoughts about the film at #FDFN2014 @sji_uic
Wednesday, May 28th

67
8:00 – 9:00 a.m. Registration table at conference site lobby for pre-
MCs for Thursday and Friday are:
Isis Ferguson, Deana Lewis, Marco Roc, Obari Cartman, and Kesh Ross
9:00– 10:30 a.m. Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
Reflections on Freedom Struggles of the Past: Charismatic Leaders, Feminist
Voices and Grassroots Organizing
This panel will bridge past and present struggles by examining first how we
remember the past, who and what is left out, distorted or mythologized as
we look back at the 1960s. Younger activists will address how they have
been influenced by past movements but how contemporary realities differ.
Peniel Joseph, Professor, Tufts University, author of Stokely
Robyn Spencer, Lehman College history Professor
Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Professor, Spelman College, editor of Words of Fire
Jasson Perez, BYP 100, former organizer for SEIU
Philip Agnew, Dream Defenders
Cathy Cohen, Professor of Political Science, Black Youth Project
Fannie Rushing, Professor and SNCC veteran
Moderator: Tracye Matthews, Center for Research on Race, Politics and
Culture at University of Chicago
10:15 – 10:30 a.m. Ella Baker Monologue by Ella’s Daughters and guest:
Isis Ferguson, Aisha Truss-Miller, Sabina Varela, Alexis Pegues, and Ainsley
Lesure
10:40– 12:00 noon Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
Critical Struggles, Breaking Down Silos: Movement Building in 2014 and
Correcting Myths about the Past
One of the challenges of “movement building” past and present is how to
get beyond single issues and single communities to forge a broad-based
movement that seeks transformative justice. It is easier to focus on racism
narrowly defined or immigration or jobs but a bigger challenge, which also
confronted activists of the 1960s, is how to forge meaningful ties across the
boundaries of difference that still recognize the inequality and privilege that
exists among activists themselves. SNCC and Freedom Summer participants
confronted this question but still addressed multiple issues of oppression:
poverty, racism, war, and disenfranchisement and built alliances with an
eclectic array of activists, organizations and individuals. In forging unity,
what kind of “movement” is it that we seek?
Thursday, May 29th

7 Thursday, May 29th
Emery Wright, Project South
Reyna Wences, immigration activist, Immigrant Youth Justice League
Marisa Franco, National Day Laborer Organizing Network
Charlie Cobb, former SNCC member, Senior Writer and Diplomatic
Correspondent for AllAfrica.com
Leena Odeh, student, Northeastern Law School and longtime activist
Moderator: Charlene Carruthers, BYP100
11:40 a.m. – 12:00 noon Complex Movements, a Detroit-based artists’
collective, will coordinate activity with audience engagement
12:00– 12:40 p.m. Lunch Break (sandwiches and salads available in lobby,
including vegetarian options, for a small fee paid at the registration table)
12:25 - 12:35 p.m. Lunchtime Performance by Kuumba Lynx (invited)
Thompson Room, SCW
12:40– 1:55 p.m. Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
Politics in the Age of Obama: The Power & Limits of Electoral Strategies
The fight for the ballot was a life and death struggle in Mississippi in 1964.
Democracy and freedom are often equated with ‘voting’ in the mainstream
media. But while voting is important, it is also limited in terms of what we
can vote for, who can afford to run for office, and even who is eligible and
empowered to cast a ballot (given felony disenfranchisement and voter
suppression). This is not a panel “about” President Obama but about how
our views of voting may have shifted over time, especially in the wake of
Obama’s election and two-term administration. More fundamentally, this
panel seeks to ask the question – can we vote our way to freedom? Why is
voting important on one level, but what needs to change to make democracy
more of a reality on another level? And why are other strategies and tactics
as important or, some argue, more important than electoral politics for
realizing social change? How do electoral politics fit into our concept of
‘freedom’ in the broadest sense?
Rosa Clemente, former Green Party V.P. Candidate
Amisha Patel, Grassroots Collaborative
Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Jackson, MS
Yohuru Williams, Professor and Director, Black Studies, Fairfield University
Che “Rhymefest” Smith, artist, activist & former Chicago Alderman
Candidate
Moderator: Keeanga Taylor, Assistant Professor, African American Studies,
Princeton University, and activist

89Thursday, May 29th
2:05 – 3:25 p.m. Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Trans-national & Indigenous Solidarity Work Thompson Room SCW
This session looks across borders and across time to ask questions about
solidarity: how do we express our solidarity in a meaningful and principled
way? With complex situations all over the world, it’s not enough to say we
are with the South African people or the Cree Nation or Haiti or Syria.
Internal divides within those countries / nations and movements are real.
But how do ‘outsiders’ make a judgment? What are models for cross-border
solidarity and how does the continued metaphor of borders relate to issues
of indigenous and first people’s rights? Moreover, the session will talk
about the importance of trans-national work and solidarity with indigenous
struggles growing out of the experiences of the panelists. Most importantly,
how are our struggles for freedom in the 21st century inescapably global
and what are the terms, structures, documents and concepts around which
we can rally? Human Rights? UN World Conference against Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance from 2001 in Durban?
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)?
Lisa Brock, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College
Nadine Naber, UIC Prof. GWS, ASAM, & Arab Women’s Activist Network
Steven Hawkins, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA
Prexy Nesbitt, US Africa Network, and former Anti-Apartheid Activist
Walter Riley, Haiti support activist, Oakland, CA.
Crystal Lameman, Bear Cree Nation and tar sands activist (Alberta)
Andy Clarno, UIC sociologist researching South Africa and Palestine
Moderator: Lynette Jackson, Africanist historian and activist, Prof. at UIC,
GWS and African American Studies
Session B: The Black Community, Sexual Politics and Marriage Equality
SCW 219
Film screening & discussion: “The New Black” (TNB); www.newblackfilm.com
This acclaimed new documentary, “The New Black,” by Yoruba Richen
chronicles the organizing effort to win marriage equality in Maryland and
the struggle inside the Black community and the Black Church over this issue.
Participants in the film and the campaign (in Maryland and elsewhere) will
offer reflections on the issue within the context of the overriding Freedom
Dreams Freedom Now conference question: what do we want and what is
freedom in the largest sense of the term? Does marriage equality get us there
or does it bring us closer? Does it democratize a longstanding patriarchal
institution or does it promote conformity? How has the debate played out in
the Black community?

Karess Taylor-Hughes, organizer featured in TNB about marriage equality &
the Black Church
Yvonne Welbon, TNB co-producer, independent filmmaker & media scholar
Angie Rollins, Chicago activist and BYP100 member
Moderator: Cathy Cohen, political scientist, Black queer activist, Professor,
University of Chicago
Session C: Leadership, Popular Education and Organizing Styles and
Strategies: Paulo Freire, Ella Baker and Education for Liberation
8175 COMRB
Many times we talk about access to education, working conditions and pay
for teachers and the defunding of public education, but this panel will talk
about the approach, concept, philosophy and underlying values and politics
that inform how we teach and learn. Each panelist will address the question:
what does a liberatory education really mean from the vantage point of their
experience or research working in a particular model, tradition or school
setting? How can we set the stage for students to become social justice actors
and schools to be sites for critical and liberatory thinking?
Albert Sykes, Advocacy and Policy Director, Young People’s Project,
Jackson, MS.
Hilda Franco, Rudy Lozano Leadership Academy
Tony Alvarado Rivera and Imani Smith, Chicago Freedom School
Nakisha Hobbs, Village Leadership Academy
Tara Mack, Education for Liberation Network
Natalie Bennett, Granville Reading and Art Programme, Jamaica & UIC
Fabricio Balcazar, Freirian Scholar, UIC
Moderator: Amanda Lewis, Professor, African American Studies & Sociology,
UIC, author of Race on the Schoolyard
Session D: Alternative Media and Technology Tactics SCW 213
Alternative media has always been critical for social justice movements.
In many recent US and global movements, social media has played a
role. Malcom Gladwell once wrote, “the revolution won’t be tweeted,”
emphasizing the importance of face-to-face organizing. Still, traditional and
alternative media (radio and print) as well as robust social media networks
are important sites of organizing and struggle. As we imagine “freedom”
how do these forms of media play a role? Are they democratizing or
presenting new ways that divide us generationally and in terms of access to
technology? What are the opportunities, challenges and what is the role of
activist media in the context of a democratized and ‘free’ media in the best
sense of the term?

Moya Bailey, former member, CRUNK feminist collective
Suey Park, cyber activist and writer
Akiba Solomon, reporter for Colorlines, New York City
Shayla Scales, University of Michigan student activist with #BBUM
campaign
Elizabeth Robinson, longtime alternative media activist, Santa Barbara
Laura Flanders, GriTV, New York, journalist, author, media activist
Moderator: Alice Kim, writer and visiting lecturer, UIC
Session E: Sexual Freedom and Reproductive Justice SCW 206
How can there be any freedom without basic freedom of one’s body and
sexual expression? This panel will explore issues of reproductive justice
from an intersectional perspective, including the legacy of women of color
activism around these issues as in the case of Flo Kennedy. The panel
will frame the discussion of sexual freedom, from LGBTQIA identities to
the ways in which the politics of respectability, misogyny and patriarchy
police the sexual expression of queer and heterosexual people. Debates
about single motherhood and fatherhood are part of a larger set of
structures and assumptions about how power operates in our society. How
do we envision a society in which sexualities are not policed and bodies
are not coerced to fit into certain identities? In the spirit of the conference
we want to think imaginatively about liberatory possibilities but without
assuming that everyone shares that same vision. Does this mean rethinking
or transcending “family”? Does it mean new categories or no categories?
What languages capture our visions in terms of ways of conceiving of our
sexuality and reproductive roles?
Elena Gutierrez, Associate Professor, UIC Gender and Women’s Studies
and LALS
Sherie Randolph, Asst. Professor, U. of Michigan, author of forthcoming
book on Flo Kennedy
Kamayani Bali Mahabal, South Asia Coordinator of Peoples Health
Movement and the Steering Committee Member of the National
Alliance on Maternal Health and Human Rights
Dayo Gore, activist and historian, UC San Diego
Daisy Zamora, UIC student and queer activist
Owen Daniel-McCarter, Legal Director at the Trans Life Center of Chicago
House
Danielle McGuire, award-winning author and Assistant Professor in
History, Wayne State University
Moderator: Jennifer Brier, historian and curator of “Out in Chicago”
exhibition at Chicago History Museum in 2012

Session F: Embodying Our Revolutionary Visions (an experiential workshop)
SCW 218
Grounded in principles of solidarity across movements and the value of
dialogue across cultures, this interactive session combines Theatre of the
Oppressed games and participant storytelling to engage the conference
call, “What are we for?” as we collect varied experiences, responses and
epiphanies of conference participants. Theatre of the Oppressed approaches
emerging out of Freire’s work in Pedagogy of the Oppressed are employed
internationally, combining image and story, discipline and freedom, to
expand cultural understanding and imagine alternate outcomes and actions
in a more socially just world.
Lori Barcliff Baptista, Director, African American Cultural Center, UIC
Rosa Cabrera, Director, Latino Cultural Center, UIC
Megan Carney, Director, Gender and Sexuality Center, UIC
Willa Taylor, Director, Education and Community Engagement, Goodman
Theatre
Sara Vogt, Disability Specialist, Disability Resource Center, UIC
Rebecca Gordon, Director, Women’s Leadership and Resource Center, UIC
Session G: Radical Lawyering, Rights and Repression: Can We Imagine a Truly
Fair and Free System of Justice? 3175 COMRB
The courts are ostensibly the sites where justice is demanded and dispensed.
Lawyers, litigants and those prosecuted have often found justice ellusive.
Racism and class bias are rampant in our legal system: from the McCarthy
era of the 1950s to COINTELPRO in the 1960s to surveillance and
prosecution of dissidents today, including the continued plight of political
prisoners and exiles. This panel will talk about the work of radical lawyers
and legal campaigns and projects. The conference is about “freedom
dreams” but who can dream of freedom in jail, in prison, locked up?
The line between how popular consensus dictates who deserves, even
nominally, to be ‘free’ and who doesn’t is a critical line. These lawyers have
problematized notions of “the innocent” and “the guilty” and on some level
have interrogated the assumptions that critical race theorists have so deftly
challenged, about the so-called neutrality of the law.
Purvi Shah, Bertha Social Justice Institute, Center for Constitutional Rights
Flint Taylor, People’s Law Office in Chicago
Jasmine Davis, Know Your Rights Project in Englewood with First Defense
Legal Aid
Cheryl Graves, J.D., Community Justice for Youth Institute
Dima Khalidi, Attorney, Palestine Solidarity Legal Support
Alejandro Molina, Boricua Human Rights Organization, Chicago
Moderator: Leena Odeh, Law Student at Northeastern Univ. Law School

Session H: Sage Community Health Collective, Healing, Rejuvenation Space/
Workshop (sagecommunityhealth.org) 6175 COMRB
In this session we will spend time thinking and practicing the values of
Healing Justice. Together we will ask and answer the questions: What is
the difference between self-care and healing justice? How does healing
justice intersect with Transformative Justice and Prison Abolition? What are
we doing in Chicago to address generational trauma? And what additional
tools does our community need to make this concept real? Using mind, body
and spirit connections, participants will leave equipped to integrate Healing
Justice values and concrete tools into their existing work. This workshop will
be hands-on and participatory.
Shira Hassan, Director of the former Young Women’s Empowerment Project
Stacy Erenberg, Sage Community Health Collective
Session I: Family Room / Break Room SCW 216
3:30 – 4:50 p.m. Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
The Power of Art: Freedom Dreams and the Manufacture of Desire
Art is at the crux of “freedom dreams.” Artists help us imagine new
possibilities. This panel will explore the radical transformative possibilities
of art and art making. If the liberatory power of art and culture is one side
of the equation, the manipulation and manufacture of our desires through
commodity culture is the other. How do we envision a different role for artists
in our society and in movements for change? How does misogynist culture
and commercialized art compromise our ability to envision liberatory art
practices? Where do neoliberalism and new technologies of production and
distribution fit in? This panel of artists, art scholars, activists and organizers
will explore these questions as they wrestle with the central theme of the
conference: forging our collective dreams of freedom.
Tony Bogues, Professor, Brown University, author of Empire of Liberty:
Power, Freedom and Desire and co-curator of “Reframing Haiti-Art”
dream hampton, writer, filmmaker, social justice organizer, Detroit, MI
Mark Anthony Neal, cultural critic, author, Duke University Professor
Kevin Coval, poet, author, educator, founder of “Louder Than a Bomb”
poetry slam
Coya Paz, Free Street Theater, Chicago, IL
Ronak Kapadia, Gender & Women’s Studies Professor (UIC) & former
member of Fierce, has written about artists M.I.A. and Wafaa Bilal
Iván Arenas, SJI Fellow, former member, ASARO arts collective in Oaxaca,
Mexico
Moderator: Lisa Yun Lee, Director, Art & Art History Program, UIC

What is the 21st Century Landscape of Injustice? Carceral States: Surveillance,
Prisons, Police, and Immigration Detention
This panel will explore what Beth Richie and others term “the carceral
state.” The focus will be on the growing prison industry and the links to
the criminalization of communities from the increased surveillance of the
Mississippi Sovereignty Commission and COINTELPRO in the 1960s to NSA
surveillance practices, and the epidemic of mass incarceration today.
Beth Richie, Professor, UIC, author of Arrested Justice: Black Women,
Violence and America’s Prison Nation
Mariame Kaba, Project NIA
John Dittmer, Bancroft prize-winning historian of Local People and Good
Doctors
Liat Ben-Moshe, editor of Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and
Disability in the United States and Canada
Joey Mogul, People’s Law Office
Ahmad Rahman, UM-Dearborn Professor, former Black Panther political
prisoner
Moderator: Randolph Carr III, anti-mass incarceration activist, New York
6:45 – 9:00 p.m. Mega-Community Dinner with suggested seating to make
sure everyone is included and dialogue across various boundaries occurs.
We will be graciously hosted by Alhambra Palace Restaurant, 1240 W.
Randolph. Two performances will punctuate the evening followed by music
and dancing. Suggested donation for dinner is on a $10-$20 sliding scale.
Shuttles will be available.
7:00 – 7:20 p.m. Dinner Performance by About Face Theater on themes of
queer undocumented youth. In a preliminary reading of this original play,
characters explore the often overlooked intersection between immigration
and the LGBTQIA experience. Through storytelling, spoken word, and
movement, these talented young people share experiences of coming out
and growing up. Inspired by the burgeoning “Undocuqueer” movement
in our country, Checking Boxes is based on the true experiences of the
ensemble members and members of the LGBTQIA community.
“We have to talk about liberating
minds as well as liberating society.”
Angela Davis

7:20 – 8:30 p.m. Dinner and discussion
8:30 – 9:10 p.m. Performance of “Two Years Later (after Trayvon),” a
performance by six incredible and inspiring young poets from Chicago who
interrogate and explore their truths in response to the loss of Trayvon Martin
and the trial of George Zimmerman.
Tweet your thoughts about the dinner performances at #FDFN2014 @sji_uic
9:10 p.m. – Midnight. Music and dancing with Chicago DJ Collective at
Alhambra Palace Restaurant
Shuttles will transport out of town guests and those in need of transport back to
campus and hotels beginning at 10:30 p.m. to midnight.
“Without new visions, we don’t know what to build,
only what to knock down. We not only end up confused,
rudderless, and cynical, but we forget that making a
revolution is not a series of clever maneuvers and tactics,
but a process that can and must transform us”
Robin D.G. Kelley,
“We fight the same battles over and over again.
They are never won for eternity, but in the process of
struggling together, in community, we learn how to
glimpse new possibilities that otherwise never would have
become apparent to us, and in that process we expand
and enlarge our very notion of freedom.”
Angela Y. Davis

15 Friday, May 30th
9:00 – 10:00 a.m. Registration table at conference site lobby for pre-
10:00 – 11:30 a.m. Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
Intergenerational, Youth and Campus Organizing
This session will begin with a short overview of the struggles of Black students
in the 1960s, which laid the foundation for Black Studies and the further
desegregation of higher education. We will then shift to hear about the
current struggles on four key campuses, yet not simply as a report from the
battlefield, but rather on what the visions of change and freedom are that
underlie these efforts. What do student organizers in 2014 want? A ‘freedom
budget’ and new economic priorities? Ethical investment policies related
to global justice and prisons? Fair and humane policies for undocumented
students? A “freedom agenda” as implied by the work of BYP100 and Dream
Defenders? What is the “dream” of collective freedom today as it plays out
in these youth-led struggles? How might they link to one another?
Martha Biondi, Black Revolution on Campus author, Prof, Northwestern U.
Kashira Ayers, UCSB activist on prison divestment and anti institutional racism
Alexis Wright, UCSB, Black Student Union activist
Jalil Bishop, Dartmouth University activist
Ozi Uduma, #BBUM at U of Michigan
Suha Najjar, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, Divest UM, U of
Michigan
Jessica Pierce, BYP 100, Washington, D.C.
Imani Brown, Columbia Prison Divest
Ciara Taylor, Dream Defenders
Moderator: Toussaint Losier, recent Ph.D., & former student activist at
Harvard U. and University of Chicago
“To create knowledge that transforms our views of the world
and, through sharing and application, transforms the world.”
Excerpt from UIC’s mission

1617Friday, May 30th
Why is Education the Epicenter of the Struggle for Freedom in the U.S.?
From the struggle for public education in the wake of slave emancipation to
the Supreme Court battles over desegregation in the 1950s, to the recent
fierce and brilliant Chicago Teachers Union strike, the value of education has
been a critical issue in the struggle for racial and social justice. Who gets
educated and how are key. The amount of resources devoted to educating
some and not others; access to higher education; the climate in schools and
on campus as well as the content of what students learn are hotly debated
topics. Schools (k-12 and college) are major ‘socializing’ institutions in our
society and have the potential to eiter breed conformity or produce critical
thinkers. This panel will not only critique current assaults on public education,
but more importantly, discuss how we might imagine education and learning
differently. This includes form and content, the physical space of schools, and
how teachers and students are taught and treated. How is education linked
to a whole host of other social problems and possibilities?
Karen Lewis, President, Chicago Teachers Union
Prudence Browne, UIC, NOLA and Education in Crisis
Asha Ransby-Sporn, activist, student: SAMI, Columbia Divest
Laura Emiko Soltis, Freedom University, Atlanta, GA
Pauline Lipman, UIC Professor, and Teachers for Social Justice
Moderator: Elizabeth Todd-Breland, Asst. Professor of History, UIC
1:00– 1:10 p.m. Artistic Intervention Thompson Room, SCW
1:10 – 1:55 p.m. Lunch Break (sandwiches and salads available in lobby,
including vegetarian options, for a small fee paid at registration).
Author book signing: Beverly Guy-Sheftall, Joey Mogul, Martha Biondi, John
Dittmer, Roderick Ferguson, Nadine Naber, Rhonda Williams & other authors
will be available to sign books at the Haymarket Book table in the lobby.
2:05– 3:45 p.m. Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Faith-inspired Freedom Struggles and Faith-Based Opposition
6175 COMRB
Faith, religion and spirituality have been catalysts for social justice movements,
and the source of strength for oppressed people to endure hardship. They
have also been used as wedges to divide, conquer and condemn. However,
from liberation theology to the role of progressive Black Churches during the
Civil Rights Movement, the spirit of generosity and forgiveness that is a part
of Islam, Judaic traditions, Buddhism and others, there is a basis that spiritual
people draw upon to fight the good fight for justice. How do we honor these
traditions without becoming self-righteous or sectarian, looking down upon

17 Friday, May 30th
secular activists? How do we cling to “our faith” of choice or birth, but find
room to accept others as allies and collaborators in social justice work? What
is the role of ‘faith’ in primarily secular struggles and campaigns and in politics
in general? How do we recognize the individual beliefs of others but still
navigate a common ground of acceptance for choices and policies that might
not conform to religious teachings? Reproductive choice and LGBTQIA rights
are but two examples.
Rachel Harding, Assistant Professor of Indigenous & Spiritual Traditions,
University of Colorado, Denver
Rami Nashashibi, Inner-City Muslim Action Network (IMAN), Chicago
Rabbi Brant Rosen, author of Wrestling in the Daylight: A Rabbi’s Path to
Palestinian Solidarity
Reverend Janette Wilson, Attorney & National Director, PUSH Excel
Co-moderator: Zoharah Simmons, former SNCC member with Quaker, Baptist
and Sufi background, Asst. Professor of Religion, University of Florida
Co-moderator: Aja Reynolds, UIC College of Education student
Session B: Civil Disobedience as a Tactic: Immigrant Rights, Civil Rights,
Economic Justice and Anti-militarism Non-violent Direct Action
8175 COMRB
Martin Luther King, in his famous “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” called
on all Americans to actively but peacefully oppose laws that were morally
wrong. Civil disobedience continues to be a widely used tactic to protest
injustice. How is it also a part of liberation and envisioning freedom?
How do such tactics also ‘free us from fear’ individually and collectively?
During the Civil Rights Movement, SNCC and other groups engaged in civil
disobedience and were also harassed and arrested even when they did not
break the law. Today, immigration activists and “Moral Mondays” protests in
North Carolina have involved hundreds of arrests. Similarly, the anti-eviction
and pro-health access movements in Chicago has experienced numerous
protestor arrests. Each of these activists will talk about personal choices and
the political tactics of civil disobedience as part of envisioning freedom.
Tim Tyson, “Moral Mondays”, Prof., Duke Divinity School, author & historian
Lulu Martinez, immigration rights activist held in detention for her actions
Maya Ann Evans, UK based activist who has mainly focused on campaigning
against the ongoing war in Afghanistan
Rosi Carrasco, immigration rights activist involved in civil disobedience
Toussaint Lossier, historian, anti-eviction campaign
Fannie Rushing, Professor, Benedictine University, SNCC veteran, and
Freedom Summer Participant
Moderator: Amalia Pallares, Director, Latin American & Latino Studies, UIC,
co-author, Marcha!

1819
Session C: Fighting for the Right to the City Thompson Room, SCW
Chicago is the site of a fierce battle over the future of its neighborhoods,
services and institutions. The same is the case for Detroit, Newark, and in
different ways, New York and New Orleans. Who has a right to public
spaces and resources, the wealthy who get tax breaks to invest in cities and
want protected urban playgrounds free of public housing and other signs of
poverty, or the majority of urban residents? These are critical questions as
the nature of modern cities change. A coalition, named “Right to the City”
describes its mission this way: “Right to the City (RTTC) emerged in 2007
as a unified response to gentrification and a call to halt the displacement
of low-income people, people of color, marginalized LGBTQ communities,
and youths of color from their historic urban neighborhoods.” This panel will
explore what is going on in key cities not as descriptive ‘horror stories’ but
rather as an invitation to imagine, as the Boggs Center does in Detroit, the
possibilities for new urban farms, coalitions, communities and experiments.
Unaffordable housing and gentrification are key problems, but grassroots
mobilizations by women as well as university-community partnerships may
hold hopeful signs for future change and transformations. Panelists will briefly
offer examples of these actions and models looking forward.
Tawana Petty, James and Grace Lee Boggs Center, Detroit, MI
Zenzele Isoke, activist and author of Urban Black Women & the Politics of
Resistance
Rosemary Ndubuizu, ONE DC
Shana Griffin, New Orleans activist, Women’s Health and Justice Initiative
Kali Akuno, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Jackson, MS
Rhonda Williams, Social Justice Institute, Case Western Reserve University
Adam Green, historian, University of Chicago
Moderator: Teresa Cordova, Director, Great Cities Institute, UIC
Session D: Food Sovereignty, Environmental Justice & Racism SCW 206
Food justice and sovereignty are key issues, as is environmental justice. What
is our cutting edge analysis of how this fits into or is an overarching issue
in terms of social justice / social transformation and ‘freedom’? Perhaps
we could flip the question and say: We could have food sovereignty and
still not have full freedom but we cannot have full freedom without food
justice. Is that a fair statement? What is the importance, power, potential
and limits of a food justice movement? And what terms are the most useful in
our political language around this issue: “food justice,” “food sovereignty,”
“environmental justice,” or “sustainability.” How do you see links with
environmental justice and food justice work / analysis? How do class and
race fit in? How do the current food and environmental crises relate to the
general crisis of capitalism? How do we make analytical and people-to-
Friday, May 30th

19
people connections with food and environmental justice activists in other
parts of the world given the unequal realities and interdependencies based
on privilege? What are some contradictions and limits of ongoing work and
the political framing within which it occurs? What are critical principles,
demands, practices and models?
Rose Brewer, Professor, University of Minnesota
Seneca Kern, We Farm America
Antonio Lopez, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
Baba Fred Carter, The Black Oaks Center
Ethan Viets-VanLear, Circles & Ciphers and Rogers Park gardening project
Myrtle Thompson-Curtis, co-founder ‘Feedom’ Freedom Growers, Detroit
Moderator: Dara Cooper, Brooklyn food justice activist
Session E: Alter Destiny: Afro-Futurism and Black Radical Imagination as
Engaged Creative Practice 3175 COMRB
Afro-futurism, the radical imaginary, surrealist thinkers, experimental films
and other art forms provoke us to think beyond the here and now, beyond
the contemporary realities of injustice and suffering to the possibilities of a
different way or being, of ordering society, or of relating to one another. We
have to exercise the muscles of our imaginations in order to engage in truly
transformative work. The quick fix approach to social change will only get
us so far. This session focuses on a curated film series entitled “Black Radical
Imagination” by Amir George and Erin Christovale, and the visionary work
of artist and scholar Denenge Akpem whose work is inspired by the likes of
Sun Ra and Octavia Butler. The session will include performative engagement
with the audience, and screening of three short films from the series: “Black
Bullets,” “Black Magic at the White House,” and “Memory Room.” Tie-ins
will be made to anti-prison work.
Denenge Akpem, faculty member at Columbia College & teaches on Afro-
Futurism and Black liberation
Erin Christovale, film curator, Los Angeles, CA
Amir George, founder of Cinema Culture, a grassroots film organization in
Chicago
Moderator: Bryant Brown, Students Against Mass Incarceration, NYC
Friday, May 30th
“Transformed circumstances require
new theories and practices.”
Angela Davis

2021
Session F: “Woke Up Black,” A film by Mary Morten SCW 218
The film chronicles the lives of five Black teenagers and young adults for
two years. It offers a glimpse into the ways they confront and navigate
racism, sexism, homophobia, as well as the humor, tenacity and toughness
that is required to survive. Above all “Woke Up Black” combats myths that
portray Black youth as homogeneous and disrupts stereotypes that negate
their humanity. There will be a post-screening discussion with Mary Morten,
Jasmine Thomas, and Jessica Disu (FM Supreme), who will conclude the
session by performing some of her work.
Mary Morten, filmmaker, and President of the Morten Group
Jessica Disu, rap artist and activist
Jasmine Thomas, Chicago Freedom School Freedom Fellow
Session G: The Neoliberal University: Higher Education in Crisis and Struggle
SCW 213
The move toward the privatization and corporatization of higher education,
an over-emphasis on the market and a de-emphasis on public funding
characterize this transformation that many have termed “the neoliberal
university.” This panel will both diagnose the problem and articulate
alternative visions. Discussants will talk about how neoliberal policies and
practices have impacted their institutions and work. This session will also
engage how student activism, union organizing, and transnational solidarity
with colleagues in other parts of the world have pushed back against the
dominant trends on college and university campuses.
Rod Ferguson, Professor and author of The Reorder of the Things
Jennifer Alzate, United Coalition for Racial Justice at Univ. of Michigan
Sekile Nzinga-Johnson, Asst. Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies, UIC
Sarah Gonzalez, teacher and education activist
Melissa Padilla and Mayowa Willoughby, Dartmouth student activists
Gina Dent, UC Santa Cruz, feminist scholar, author and activist
Moderator: Deana Lewis, UIC graduate student, activist with GirlTalk at
juvenile detention center
Session H: Through a Different Lens: Social Justice Film and Photography
SCW 219
This panel on freedom and filmmaking / photography will ask the question
“how do we do the work differently if we are doing racial and social justice
work?” How do images capture what words cannot in terms of exposing
injustice and provoking us to imagine justice? Maria Varela from SNCC will
show some of her photos from the 1960s and then the group will imagine
new projects that could be transformative.
Friday, May 30th

21
Maria Varela, photographer, SNCC activist
Obari Cartman, photographer, community activist and psychologist
Pamela Sporn, educator and documentary filmmaker
Sarah Jane Rhee, photographer and social justice activist
Moderator: Yvonne Welbon, filmmaker, Professor Bennett College
4:00– 5:30 p.m. Concurrent Sessions
Session A: Freedom and Work: Labor Struggles and Economic Justice
Thompson Room, SCW
The growing wealth gap, rising poverty and a decrease in union labor raise
fundamental questions about the “freedom” we can imagine without work. At
the same time, technology challenges us to rethink work. The 8-hour workday
was a novel concept at one point. With a growing population, the changing
nature of production and new technologies making certain forms of labor
obsolete, how might we rethink work? Also, with the push of the market into
every aspect of life, how can we question the logic of capitalism by looking
at solidarity economies and cooperative economics?
James Thindwa, labor organizer, AFT
Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Economist & author of Collective Courage: A
History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
Veronica Avila, ROCUnited, restaurant workers organizer
Dominic Moulden, ONE DC
Tania Unzueta, National Day Labor Organizing Network (NDLON), D.C.
Therese Quinn, Faculty United union activist and Dir. of Museum Studies, UIC
Martin Macias Jr., Students Against Sweatshops, SJI member, UIC student
Moderator: Premilla Nadasen, Professor, Barnard College, author of Welfare
Warriors
Session B: Anti-Violence, Anti-Prison and Restorative Justice Work SCW 213
Through the growing prison abolition movement and corollary restorative
justice projects and campaigns, social justice activists are challenging the
Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) and the epidemic of mass incarceration.
This panel invites us to not only critique what Michelle Alexander calls the
New Jim Crow, but to imagine alternatives to punishment as a remedy for
violence and crime. Can we imagine a world without prisons? Without
violence? What does it mean not simply to be anti-violence but pro-peace?
Where does healing get factored in as a response to traumatized bodies
and communities? How can we avoid the danger of anti-violence discourse
descending into individual blame?
Friday, May 30th

2223
Danton Floyd, Truth n’ Trauma Program, Chicago State University
Charity Tolliver, Chicago activist, Soros Fellow
Erica Meiners, Prison Arts Program, NEIU
Dorian Barnwell, Students Against Mass Incarceration, New York City
Alice Kim, anti-death penalty activist and Chicago Torture Justice Memorials
member
Leslie Etienne, Project South, Atlanta, GA
Xavier McElrath-Bey, activist, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth,
Moderator: Natalie Moore, reporter, Chicago Public Radio
Session C: Health as a Human Right: Health, Mental Health and Radical
Community Health Projects 3175 COMRB
This session will focus on health as a human right. Without health there is
very little freedom, quite literally. Panelists will explore Chicago’s healthcare
struggles and the ways in which poor and uneven healthcare and the
absence of prevention and healing occur because of systemic problems.
The panel will look back to the 1960s for two powerful examples of ‘radical
doctoring’ and health provision: the Medical Committee on Human Rights
(affiliated with SNCC) and the Black Panther Party’s community health
clinics and their efforts to pioneer new community-centered approaches to
preventive healthcare and healing. These and other examples of healthcare
struggles will feed into a bigger discussion of how we can re-imagine ‘health
and healing.’
John Dittmer, Prof. Emeritus, DePauw University & author, The Good Doctors
Alondra Nelson, Prof. at Columbia U. & author of Body & Soul
Sam Roberts, Assoc. Prof., Columbia U. & medical historian
Kamiyani Bali Mahabal, South Asia Coordinator of Peoples Health
Movement and the Steering Committee Member of the National Alliance
on Maternal Health and Human Rights
Moderator: Linda Murray, former pres. of American Public Health Assoc.,
M.D., and activist
Session D: Complex Movements Workshop 8175 COMRB
Complex Movements is a Detroit-based artists’ collective composed of graphic
designer / fine artist Wesley Taylor, music producer / filmmaker Waajeed,
hip-hop lyricist / organizer Invincible, and creative technologist / multimedia
artist Carlos (L05) Garcia. They develop interactive performance work and
workshops that illuminate connections between complex science and social
justice movements to support the transformation of communities. Their current
project “Beware of the Dandelions,” integrates elements of sci-fi, gaming,
hip-hop, techno, animation, and architecture, and is being co-produced by
Friday, May 30th

23
Sage Crump. Sage is co-director of Art is Change, which supports work
to transform culture in the areas of economy, ecology, community, and
creativity. Sage is also a long time member of Alternate ROOTS, and sits on
the national advisory committee of Women of Color in the Arts.
Session E: Grassroots Mobilizations in the 1950s and 1960s: Black Agency
and the White Anti-Racist Tradition – Ella Baker, the Black Church and Anne
Braden” SCW 206
A clip from a film on Braden’s extraordinary life will be shown.
This panel focuses on two individuals and one institution that offer a counter-
narrative to the top down views of Civil Rights and Southern history: Ella
Baker, Anne Braden and rank and file members of the Black Church.
Panelists will address principled anti-racist white and interracial activism from
the Civil Rights era to the present. Why is it important to remember the Anne
Bradens of the Black Freedom Movement? What is the link between Black
agency and anti-white racism? How does this history and present politics fuel
or animate our freedom dreams in terms of the politics of race and legacy of
white supremacy?
Cate Fosl, Assoc. Prof. of Women’s & Gender Studies / History, and
Director, Anne Braden Institute (ABI) for Social Justice Research & author
of Subversive Southerner
Jamie Beard, Staff at ABI
Mariam Williams, Staff at ABI
Aldon Morris, Prof., Northwestern University, author of Origins of the Civil
Rights Movement
Ann-Meredith Wootton, NOLA and youth and arts activist, and grad student
College of Education, UIC
Tim Tyson, historian and author of Radio Free Dixie: Robert Williams and the
Roots of Black Power
Moderator: Jennifer Ash, historian, UIC Ph.D. student, and former faculty
member, Bennett College
Session F: A Workshop with Honey Pot Collective SCW 219
Introduction by Prudence Browne, Souls Journal Managing Editor, UIC
Honey Pot Performance is a collaborative creative community committed
to chronicling Afro-diasporic feminist and fringe subjectivities amidst the
pressures of contemporary global life. HPP draws upon a central notion
found both in performance studies and black feminist discourse: non-Western,
everyday popular and / or folk forms of cultural performance are valuable
sites of knowledge production and cultural capital for subjectivities that often
exist outside of mainstream communities.
Friday, May 30th

2425
Session G: Freedom Quilting: A Workshop 6175 COMRB
A group of quilters invite you to help assemble a “Freedom quilt.” The quilt
will reflect the different “patches” of work of conference participants. Our
goal for the conference is to engage in political and intellectual quilting and
to break down some of the silos that currently contain our work: to cross
boundaries of age, region, issues and identities. The practice of quilting is
tedious, creative, collective work that requires patience, perseverance and
attention to detail. The actual quilt parallels the metaphoric quilting work of
the conference. Please consider joining the quilters circle to create a tangible
outcome and artwork that marks the conference event.
Mary Scott Boria, quilter and activist
Elizabeth Smith, quilter
Georgette Sinkler, quilter and Philosophy Professor, UIC
Session H: “The Stuart Hall Project” SCW 218
“The Stuart Hall Project” is a film centered on the life, politics and work of
the renowned Jamaican-born intellectual Stuart Hall. Relying on archival and
media footage of Hall’s appearances on British radio and television, the film
explores the themes of memory, race and identity through the juxtaposition
of events from Hall’s life. In this acclaimed documentary, a major filmmaker
tackles a major thinker (“the foremost intellectual of the left in Britain”).
Filmmaker John Akomfrah’s wide-ranging, multi-layered portrait of Hall, is
described as “more akin to jazz, not only incorporating generous selections
of Hall’s favorite musician Miles Davis but also editing together multiple
strands of archival material in scintillating riffs that interweave Hall’s life with
a political/cultural history of the era.” An abbreviated screening of the film
will be followed by a discussion of Hall’s influence on Black diasporic and
anti-imperial thought as well as how a discussion of his life sets the stage
for next year’s Social Justice Initiative conference, “Bandung and Beyond,”
marking the 50th anniversary of the historical anti-colonial gathering in
Indonesia. Cultural theorist Stuart Hall was a significant intellectual force
among the visual artists and film-makers of what became known as the British
Black Arts Movement (BAM) of the 1980s, early 1990s and beyond. He died
in February, 2014.
Ronak Kapadia, Gender & Women’s Studies Professor, UIC, & former
member of Fierce
Tony Bogues, Professor, Brown University, author of Empire of Liberty:
Power, Freedom and Desire and co-curator of “Reframing Haiti-Art”
Lori Barcliff Baptista, Director, African American Cultural Center, UIC
Friday, May 30th

25
6:00 – 8:15 p.m. Closing Plenary Thompson Room, SCW
Welcome
Emily Williams, Associate Director, Social Justice Initiative at UIC, and activist
with US Africa Network and Grassroots Curriculum Task Force will introduce
this final plenary
The Art of Freedom
Artist Response
Artists Malcolm London and Sage Morgan-Hubbard engage the work of
Angela Davis and Robin D.G. Kelley
Closing Conversation
Freedom dreams remarks and conversation with
Angela Y. Davis and Robin D.G. Kelley
moderated by Barbara Ransby
What is the meaning of freedom? Angela Y. Davis’ life and work have been
dedicated to examining this fundamental question and to ending all forms
of oppression that deny people their political, cultural, and sexual freedom.
Davis’ praxis confronts interconnected issues of power, race, gender, class,
incarceration, conservatism, and the ongoing need for social change in the
United States. “It is not too much,” writes Robin D.G. Kelly in the introduction
to The Meaning of Freedom, “to call her one of the world’s leading
philosophers of freedom.” As for Kelley himself, the title of this conference is
borrowed from his book, Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination,
in which he eloquently insists: “Without new visions, we don’t know what to
build, only what to knock down. We not only end up confused, rudderless,
and cynical, but we forget that making a revolution is not a series of clever
maneuvers and tactics, but a process that can and must transform us.” It is
the engaged struggle and rigorous thinking of both Angela Davis and Robin
Kelley as scholars, authors, and activists, that have inspired this gathering.
8:00 – 8:15 p.m. Concluding remarks
Friday, May 30th

2627
9:00 p.m. – midnight. Closing Conference Socials. In collaboration with
the Freedom Dreams Freedom Now conference, Jane Addams Hull-House
Museum and The Silver Room present
Soul Inspiration Party
with Mr. Jaytoo spinning soul jams
at The Silver Room
1442 N Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
Shuttle will leave UIC at 8:30 for The Silver Room.
9:00 - 9:45 p.m. Black Power TV author Devorah Heitner introduces
Black public affairs television from the 1960s and 70s, exploring the
groundbreaking national and local programs that showcased radical
dialogues about black liberation and black creativity.
Powell’s Bookstore will be selling Black Power TV from 8:00 - 10:00 p.m.
Founded in 1997, The Silver Room consistently pushes the parameters of
traditional retail operation – building community through social exchange.
The Silver Room is a jewelry store, art gallery and vibrant space for
community gatherings. Named Chicago’s Best Jewelry Store by the Chicago
Reader, The Silver Room is a Chicago cultural institution.
Chicago Historic Jazz Showcase
806 South Plymouth Ct
Chicago, IL 60605
Limited tickets ($15) for 10:00 p.m. set featuring Chicago drummer and
Black music scholar, Dana Hall. Ask at registration and information table.
Friday, May 30th
“In the poetics of struggle and lived experience, in the utterances
of ordinary folk, in the cultural products of social movements,
in the reflections of activists, we discover the many different
cognitive maps of the future, of the world not yet born.”
Robin D.G. Kelley

27 Films at Freedom Dreams Freedom Now
Several filmmakers have generously allowed us to screen their films at
little or no cost. We thank them.
“Freedom Summer,” by Stanley Nelson. For more info: http://
firelightmedia.tv/project/freedom-summer/
“Black Radical Imagination,” curated by Amir George & Erin Christovale.
For more info: https://www.facebook.com/lackRadicalImagination
“Woke Up Black,” by Mary Morten.
For more info: http://wokeupblack.com
“The Stuart Hall Project,” by John Akomfrah.
For more info: http://smoking-dogs-films.myshopify.com/collections/all
“Anne Braden: Southern Patriot,” by Ann Lewis and Mimi Pickering.
For more info: http://newsreel.org/video/anne-braden-southern-patriot
“The New Black” by Yoruba Richen, Director, Producer, Writer &
Producer Yvonne Welbon.
For more info: http://www.newblackfilm.com/the-film/

2829
Freedom Dreams Freedom Now conferees are invited to submit articles
to the upcoming issue of Souls on “50th Anniversary of Freedom Summer
and the Struggles of 1964” (August 1st submission deadline)
The Souls Journal is a quarterly interdisciplinary journal founded in 1999
and published by Taylor & Francis. It is housed in the African American
Studies department of the University of Illinois at Chicago and edited by
historian and activist Barbara Ransby.
Souls aspires to produce scholarship representing a critical black studies
– analytical and theoretical works in the living tradition of scholar/activist
W.E.B. Du Bois. Souls is an intellectual intervention that seeks to inform
and transform black life and history.
The journal accepts unsolicited manuscripts by electronic submission.
Manuscripts are peer-reviewed by members of our Editorial Working
Group (EWG) and our Editorial Advisory Board (EAB), as well as other
affiliated scholars.
For more information please contact: souls@uic.edu
Souls Journal

29
Bandung and Beyond:
A Conference on Empire, Colonialism & Visions of ‘a’ Free World
Chicago, Illinois – Spring, 2015
Check SJI’s website in September for more details:
http://www.uic.edu/depts/oaa/sji/
Pipeline to Justice at University of Illinois, Chicago
The Social Justice Initiative at University of Illinois at
Chicago is launching a new scholarship, mentoring and
support program for community organizers interested in
returning to college. The project will provide scholarships
to a small cohort of activists who have contributed to
social justice work, demonstrate economic need and
are engaged in work that contributes to oppressed
communities and advances social justice. We invite
donations to this new project.
Please contact us for more info: sjiuic@gmail.com
SJI Programs & Events
P
J2

3031
The Social Justice Initiative would like to extend a special thanks to the following
people who helped to make Freedom Dreams Freedom Now a success.
and a very special thanks to the invaluable
Social Justice Initiative Coordinating Committee
and all our amazing volunteers
The Program Committee:
Beth Richie
Lisa Lee
Nadine Naber
The Social Justice Initiative Staff:
Barbara Ransby
Emily Williams
Iván Arenas
Alice Kim
Aja Reynolds
Ann-Meredith Wootton
Ashley Tolliver
Bre Mac Fadden
Charlotte Jackson
Daisy Zamora
Ellen Kang
Jasson Perez
Lilian Paniagua
Marco Roc
Martin Macias Jr.
Skyla Hearn
Conference Planning Contributors:
Deana Lewis
Isis Ferguson
Jennifer Ash
Megan Carney
Prudence Browne
Rachel Caidor
Website & Poster Design:
Jiba Molei Anderson
Mike Oleon
Silvia Gonzalez
Artistic Contributors:
David Marquez &
The People’s DJ Collective
Dee Alexander
Elizabeth Smith
Ella’s Daughters
Faheem Majeed
Gail Mitchell
Georgette Sinkler
Maria Varela
Mary Scott Boria
Sarah Jane Rhee
Team Englewood
The Young Chicago Authors
The Latino Cultural Center Radical
Art Banner Committee
Conference Social Events:
Eric Williams
Alhambra Restaurant
Maha Jarad
Steve Saltzman
Mike Nourse
Youth Programming:
Chicago Child Care Collective
The Chicago Grassroots Curriculum
Task Force
Media:
Essence McDowell
Bakari Kitwana
Dawn Bailey
Natalie Moore
The League of Young Voters
Chicago Public Radio,
(WBEZ & Vocalo)
The Chicago Reporter
Acknowledgements

31 Conference Map
Social Justice Initiative Office:
1253 S. Halsted Street, Suite 310 M/C 096
Chicago, IL 60607
Office Phone Number: (312)-355-5922
sjiuic@gmail.com / twitter / facebook
Conference Venue: Student Center West (SCW)
at the University of Illinois at Chicago
828 S. Wolcott Street
&
College of Medical Research Building (COMRB)
835 S. Wolcott Street
For emergencies please contact:
UIC Security (312) 996 - 2830
SCW
COMBR
W Taylor StW Taylor St
W Polk St CTA Pink Line
Polk Station Stop
W Roosevelt Rd
S Damen Ave
S Wood St
S Wolcott Ave
S Paulina St
M
P
P
Wood St
Parking
Structure
Paulina
Parking
Structure

Freedom dreams freedom now University of Illinois at Chicago

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to Freedom dreams freedom now University of Illinois at Chicago

Similar to Freedom dreams freedom now University of Illinois at Chicago (20)

More from CookCountyPLACEMATTERS

More from CookCountyPLACEMATTERS (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Freedom dreams freedom now University of Illinois at Chicago