Black Voices Matter
March 2022
Black History: On Rewind
To celebrate our newly digitized collection of eminent historical black orators, Cambridge Forum has teamed up with the Lincoln Institute to present a panel discussion.
May 1987
Eyes on the Prize
Henry Hampton, the driving force behind Eyes on the Prize and Blackside, speaks in 1987 at Cambridge Forum about his vision of the remarkable human drama that was the Civil Rights Movement.
June 2003
Slavery and the Invention of America
Civil rights activist Byron Rushing traces the theme of colonial domination and slavery in the shaping of America’s history and civilization, beginning with the “founding” of a country that was already known to its original inhabitants, the native Americans.
July 1997
Beloved Community: African American Women
Civil rights activist and Baptist minister Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, reflects on how Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman helped shape our ideas of humanity and advanced the struggle to recognize the dignity of all.
May 1996
Beloved Community: Cornel West & bell hooks
Can America ever become such a beloved community as Martin Luther King Jr. imagined it, a society free of prejudice where racial differences would be erased and forgotten?
February 1992
Colored People
Henry Louis Gates, Chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University, discusses his book Colored People, a memoir that weaves personal narrative with social history of the 1950s.
September 1997
Beloved Law Community: Lani Guinier
Lani Guinier discusses her vision of a beloved community in a law school setting. How should the terms of legal education be re-defined?
February 1998
Beloved Community: Cosmopolitanism
Afro-American scholar and philosopher K. Anthony Appiah considers the idea of a community founded on the principles of inclusion, hope, and mutual respect, a community that transcends the polarizing rhetoric of racism.
July 2003
Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America, Richard Rodriguez reflects on the color brown and explores issues of race, arguing that America has been brown since its inception.
April 2019
They Were Her Property
Historian Stephanie Jones-Rogers discusses her new book about the role of white women in American slavery. They Were Her Property reveals that slave-owning women were sophisticated economic actors who benefited from the South’s slave market.
September 2011
Reimagining Equality
Anita Hill reflects on her experience as an African American woman in the late 20th century. How successful have the movements for racial and gender equality been in eliminating barriers to opportunity?
August 2002
The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker
A’Lelia Bundles, Emmy-winning producer and journalist shares stories from her best-selling book about her great-great-grandmother, Madame C.J. Walker, one of the first black women entrepreneurs of the 20th century.
February 1993
Mississippi: Then and Now
Bob Moses, a veteran of the civil rights struggle, draws an analogy between the early voter registration drives in Mississippi during the 1960s and an innovative school curriculum called The Algebra Project.