Please join us on Wednesday May 6^th from 5.30-7pm in John Jay College’s Moot Courtroon (6.68NB) for a book talk and reading featuring Schomburg Center for the Study of Black Culture Director Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s incisive social history The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Dr. Muhammad will present from the book, a chronicle of the historical emergence of deeply embedded notions of black Americans as a dangerous race of criminals, by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, and the influence these ideas have had on urban development and social policies. Please RSVP to oar@jjay.cuny.edu if interested in attending.

Dr. Muhammad will conclude the OAR Spring 2015 Book Talk series, which began March 4^th  with a packed house for Gail Garfield’s Tightrope: A Racial Journey to the Age of Obama, and continued on March 25^th with a moving reading from Professor of English Adam Berlin’s 9/11 novel The Number of Missing.  Our Book Talk Series will return in the Fall of 2015; faculty who have recently published or are anticipating publication of books are encouraged to contact oar@jjay.cuny.edu to be considered for future OAR Book Talk features.
We look forward to welcoming you to these exciting events. Those unable to attend can find video of prior book talks (including recent additions from our earlier Spring 2015 and Fall 2014 Book Talk series, including Gail Garfield’s Tightrope, Alisse Waterston’s My Father’s Wars and Samantha Majic’s Sex Work Politics) and other events on the John Jay Research Youtube page.