MIAMI – This year, the 19th Annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture will feature noted sociologist Dr. Pedro Noguera who will discuss the effect of the Trump Administration on the welfare of black people.
The 19th Annual Eric E. Williams Memorial Lecture will be held at Florida International University’s Modesto Maidique Campus (11200 SW 8th Street, Miami, Florida) at the Student Access Success Center (SASC 160), on Friday, October 13, 2017 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free and open to the public.
Hosted by The African & African Diaspora Studies Lecture, Dr. Pedro Noguera will also address current issues that disproportionately impact black communities in the US: education; civil rights; chronic unemployment; concentrated poverty; inadequate access to healthcare, nutrition, clean water; and mass incarceration.
Pedro Noguera is of both Jamaican and Trinidad and Tobago heritage. At Brown University, he received his bachelors’ degree in Sociology and History and a masters’ degree in Sociology. He earned his doctorate in Sociology from UCLA, Berkeley.
Noguera has taught at both Harvard and NYU. He is currently the Distinguished Professor of Education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, serves on many national and local boards, has both taught in and advised national and international public schools, and is a regular commentator on CNN, MSNBC, and NPR.
Elected to the National Academy of Education, Noguera has garnered several prominent awards for his research and advocacy efforts aimed at fighting poverty.
Dr. Noguera has published over 200 research articles, monographs and reports on: urban school reform, conditions for student achievement, the role of education in community development, youth violence and race, and ethnic relations in America. He is the author of several books.
Established in 1999, FIU’s annual Eric Williams Lecture honors the distinguished Caribbean statesman, consummate academic, internationally renowned historian, and author of several books. His 1944 groundbreaking study Capitalism and Slavery, popularly referred to as The Williams Thesis, arguably re-framed the historiography of the British trans-Atlantic slave trade (and its concomitant European incarnations) and established the contribution of Caribbean slavery to the development of both Britain and America.
The book has been translated into nine languages, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish and Korean. It continues to inform today’s ongoing debate and remains “years ahead of its time…this profound critique is still the foundation for studies of imperialism and economic development,” according to the New York Times. Eric E. Williams was also the first Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago and Head of Government for a quarter of a century until his death in 1981. He led the country to Independence from Britain in 1962 and onto Republicanism in 1976.
Among prior Eric Williams Memorial Lecture speakers have been: the late John Hope Franklin, one of America’s premier historians of the African-American experience; Kenneth Kaunda, former President of the Republic of Zambia; Cynthia Pratt, Deputy Prime Minister of the Bahamas; Mia Mottley, Attorney General of Barbados; Beverly Anderson-Manley, former First Lady of Jamaica; Portia Simpson Miller, Prime Minister of Jamaica; Hon. Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia; Hon. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and The Grenadines; the celebrated civil rights activist Angela Davis and prize-winning Haitian author Edwige Danticat.
The Lecture, which seeks to provide an intellectual forum for the examination of pertinent issues in Caribbean and African Diaspora history and politics, is co-sponsored in part by FIU’s: Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs; Departments of Global & Sociocultural Studies, Multicultural Programs and Services; Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy; School of Education and Human Development; African & African Diaspora Studies Graduate Students Association; African Students Organization; Black Students Union; Caribbean Students Association; Amera Corporation; Bilmor With Advertising Specialties, Inc.; Sandra & Elliot Bastien; Larry Beckford & Junior Cox; Eric & Lenore Cameron; Michele & Frank Carrington; Frank & Ann Collins; Carole Cumberbatch; Edwards & Partners, LLC; Michael & Patricia Edwards; Hometrust Mortgage Corporation; Jennifer Jagbir ; Joy’s Roti Delight; Dr. & Mrs. Leroy Lashley; Miami Dade College; Dr. Humphrey Regis; Lenny Roach; Mervyn Solomon; Yvonne St. Louis; Rose Thevenin.
The Lecture is also supported by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection Research Library, Archives and Museum at the University of the West Indies (Trinidad and Tobago campus), which was inaugurated by former U.S. Secretary of State, Colin L. Powell in 1998. It was named to UNESCO’s prestigious Memory of the World Register in 1999.
Books by Eric Williams and Pedro Noguera will be available for purchase at the Lecture.
For more information, please contact 305-348-6860/905-9999 or [email protected].
