Blacks in Boston Conference

鈥淔ifty Years of Black Studies in Boston鈥
April 9, 2022 |听Boston College | Gasson 100

Fifty Years of Black Studies in Boston

This one-day conference is a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the African and African Diaspora Studies Program at Boston College. Begun in 1969 as the Black Studies Program, AADS is the oldest interdisciplinary program at the university. The conference will offer Boston College alumni, students, faculty, staff, and administrators an opportunity to reflect on the program鈥檚 (as well as Black Studies more broadly) past, present, and future.

The conference includes panels of past and present local area Africana Studies scholars and AADS alumni; a virtual walking tour of Blacks at Boston College; and a keynote address by Northeastern University Professor Regine Jean-Charles.

The conference is generously supported by the Institute of Liberal Arts and the African and African Diaspora Studies Program.

Free and open to the public. Registration required.

9:45 AM听听听听 Welcome (Gasson 100)
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Martin Summers
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Professor of History and AADS
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Director, AADS Program
听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听听Boston College

9:55 AM听听听听Performance of Negro National Anthem (鈥淟ift Every Voice and Sing鈥)

10:00 AMReflecting on Black Studies At and Beyond Boston College

Martin Summers, Moderator

Aminah Fernandes Pilgrim, Faculty of Women鈥檚, Gender & Sexuality Studies, Critical Ethnic & Community Studies, and Africana Studies, University of Massachusetts-Boston

Faith Smith, Associate Professor of African and African American Studies and English, Brandeis University

Cynthia Young, Associate Professor of African American Studies, English, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Pennsylvania State University

11:30 AM听 听 Black@情色空间 Virtual Walking Tour/Timeline

Rhonda Frederick, Moderator
Associate Professor of English and AADS
Boston College

Melanie Hubbard, Digital Scholarship Librarian
Boston College

Tim Lindgren, Assistant Director for Design Innovation, Center for Digital Innovation in Learning
Boston College

Matt Naglak, Digital Scholarship Librarian
Boston College

12:00 PM听 听Lunch

1:15 PM听听听听听听Performance by Voices of Imani

1:30 PM听 听 听Remembering Black Studies at Boston College

Karen Miller, Moderator
Associate Professor of the Practice, History Department
Boston College

Ufuoma C. Abiola (鈥06), Executive Director, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Columbia Business School

Darcel D. Clark('83), Bronx County District Attorney
Boston College Board of Trustees

Juan Concepcion (鈥96), Director, Senior Legal Counsel
Boston Scientific

Rui Gomes (鈥96), Operational Leader for Secondary School Regions
Boston Public Schools

Zebulon Miletsky (鈥06), Associate Professor of Africana Studies and History
Stony Brook University

3:30 PM 听听听听Keynote Address

R茅gine Jean-Charles, Dean鈥檚 Professor of Culture and Social Justice, Director of Africana Studies, and Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies
Northeastern University

Speakers

Aminah Fernandes Pilgrim

Aminah Fernandes Pilgrim

Aminah Fernandes Pilgrim is a mother, an artist, author, community organizer and award-winning educator. She is a faculty member at UMass Boston who teaches in Women鈥檚, Gender & Sexuality Studies, the Critical Ethnic & Community Studies MS Program, and Africana Studies. In addition, she is an affiliate of Africana Studies at Berklee College of Music. She has contributed to public history initiatives such as the Providence Black Studies Freedom School and the City of Brockton Community Black History Course. Her community organizing and advocacy focuses on children, youth/gang violence, the school to prison pipeline, immigrant transitions and women鈥檚 empowerment. She is a frequently solicited speaker, trusted advisor and well-known leader in the region. She is co-editor and contributing author of听numerous publications.


Cynthia Young

Cynthia Young

Cynthia Young is an associate professor of African American Studies, English and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. She is the former Director of African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College and the former Department Head of African American Studies at Penn State. She is currently completing her book manuscript Terror Wars, Culture Wars: Race, Popular Culture and the Civil Rights Legacy after 9/11.听


Darcel Denise Clark ('83), Bronx County District Attorney, Member of Boston College Board of Trustees

Darcel Denise Clark ('83), Bronx County District Attorney, Member of Boston College Board of Trustees

Darcel Denise Clark became the 13th District Attorney for Bronx County on January 1, 2016. She is the first woman in that position and the first African-American woman to be elected District Attorney in New York State. Prior to her election, District Attorney Clark served as an Associate Justice for the NYS Supreme Court Appellate Division, First Department; a NYS Supreme Court Justice in Bronx County; and a Criminal Court Judge in Bronx and New York Counties. She received her bachelor鈥檚 degree in Political Science from Boston College, where she was the first recipient of the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship. She earned her law degree at the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. District Attorney Clark has a long-standing commitment to her alma mater where she serves on the Boston College Board of Trustees, is a founding member of the Council for Women of Boston College (CW情色空间) and founding Co-Chair of the Boston College AHANA (African American, Hispanic, Asian, Native American) Alumni Advisory Council (AAAC).听


Faith Smith

Faith Smith

Faith Smith is an Associate Professor of African and African American Studies, and of English, at Brandeis University. Her book 鈥淪trolling in the Ruins: The Caribbean鈥檚 Non-Sovereign Modern in the Early Twentieth Century鈥 is forthcoming from Duke University Press. Her new project, 鈥淒readKin,鈥 is 听a study of 21st-century literary and visual culture and its mappings of pasts and futures, as well as genealogies of kinship and intimacy, in the context of the Caribbean鈥檚 complex experiences with sovereignty in our current global moment.


Juan Alexander Concepci贸n

Juan Alexander Concepci贸n

Juan Alexander Concepci贸n is Director, Senior Legal Counsel at Boston Scientific, where he guides compliance and strategic workforce management. Before joining Boston Scientific, Juan served in various leadership roles at MassDOT/MBTA and was Assistant General Counsel at a marketing tech corporation in California after practicing law for years at two prestigious law firms.

Concepci贸n is a long-serving director of Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR-Boston), a legal engine for racial equity and social justice. In June 2020, he joined other leading executives to establish the New Commonwealth Fund (NCF), which raised $30M+ in its initial year to help combat systemic racism through corporate, non-profit and government partnerships in Massachusetts.

A rare 情色空间 鈥淨uadruple Eagle,鈥 Juan serves with distinction on the Board of Trustees and is a member of the AADS faculty. An avid supporter of educational opportunities, he is also a trustee of Saint Columbkille and Cardinal Hayes in the Bronx, NY.


Dr. R茅gine Michelle Jean-Charles

Dr. R茅gine Michelle Jean-Charles

Dr. R茅gine Michelle Jean-Charles听is the Dean鈥檚 Professor of Culture and Social Justice, Director of Africana Studies, and Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Northeastern University.听A Black feminist scholar who works at the intersections of race, gender and justice from a global perspective, her scholarship and teaching include subjects and areas such as rape culture, Black France, African diasporic literatures, Caribbean Studies, Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. She is the author of Looking for Other Worlds: Black Feminism and Haitian Fiction (2022), The Trumpet of Conscience Today (2021) and Conflict Bodies: The Politics of Rape Representation in the Francophone Imaginary (2014). She has written numerous publications that have appeared in books, edited volumes, and peer-reviewed journals. She is also a regular contributor to media outlets like Ms. Magazine, The Boston Globe, WGBH, and Cognoscenti, where she has weighed in on topics such as听#metoo, Black girlhood, and issues affecting the Haitian diaspora.


Rui Manuel Monteiro Gomes

Rui Manuel Monteiro Gomes

Rui Manuel Monteiro Gomes was born in 1973 in Angola to Cape Verdean parents who relocated to Angola in search of a better life. At the听age of five, Rui's family sought refuge from the civil war in Angola and found themselves in the United States. Rui is the first in his family to graduate from high school and college. He proudly graduated from Boston College in 1996 with a Psychology Degree and a minor in African American History. In 2015, Rui graduated from Harvard University Graduate School of Education with a Master鈥檚 Degree in Educational Leadership and a Principal's License. He is currently employed by the Boston Public Schools as an Operational Leader. He has positioned himself to have a direct impact on the school to prison pipeline. Mr. Gomes is privileged to have the distinct duty of overseeing the district's Code of Conduct processes and making sure that our youth are treated with due process,听respect and dignity.


Dr. Ufuoma C. Abiola

Dr. Ufuoma C. Abiola

Dr. Ufuoma C. Abiola is the inaugural Executive Director for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at Columbia Business School (CBS).听 Dr. Abiola provides strategic vision, leadership, and direction for all DEI initiatives involving students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community at CBS; and she leads a full-time staff of Directors for DEI.听 She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor at University of Pennsylvania.

With expertise in DEI in higher education, Dr. Abiola has founded and created award-winning innovative institutional change programs and initiatives to increase underrepresented students鈥 persistence and success.听 She has published numerous scholarly works, presented at many national conferences, and received multiple institutional and national awards.

Dr. Abiola earned an Ed.D. and M.S.Ed. in Higher Education from University of Pennsylvania; received an M.A. in Clinical Psychology from Roosevelt University; and earned a B.A. in Psychology with a minor in African and African Diaspora Studies from Boston College (鈥06).


Zebulon Vance Miletsky

Zebulon Vance Miletsky

Zebulon Vance Miletsky, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Africana Studies and History at Stony Brook University (SUNY) specializing in recent African-American History, Civil Rights, Black Power, Urban History, Mixed Race, Biracial identity, and Hip-Hop Studies. Originally from Boston, Miletsky received his Ph.D. in African American Studies with a concentration in History from the W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 2008. In addition to his work on Mixed Race, Miletsky is also interested in the听Boston School听Desegregation Crisis and the parent-led civil rights movement in Boston. He has recently completed a manuscript on the Black freedom movement in Boston, entitled 鈥淏efore Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle鈥 to be published by the University of North Carolina Press, as part of its award-winning Justice, Power and Politics Series, in 2022.听

Registration

Campus Map and Parking

Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.

Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).

Directions, Maps, and Parking

Visitor Parking Information

Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.