Suggested Reading

Monday, January 21

Day of Action: Seattle Annual MLK Celebration
11am Rally & March starting at Franklin High School, 3013 S Mount Baker Blvd, Seattle, WA 98144

Honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by turning your day off into a day of action!  Gather with a Highline group to participate in Seattle’s Annual MLK Celebration which includes workshops, rally and march.  Meet us in the Franklin High School gym by our HCC banner. For more information, amanda.williamslewis@gmail.com or x3256.  (Map and directions.)

 

Tuesday, January 22
Capitol Resistance: Hip Hop as Mass Media
9am & 10am, Building 7

Capitol Resistance will give provocative insight as to the inner working of the music industry and its role in shaping recent world history and mass media. Capitol Resistance shines as an example of how the worlds of academia and art can mesh together in fellowship, to provide a practical and natural environment for positive discourse of social, political, and economic issues.  Featuring Dr. Jared Ball (professor of Africana and Media Studies at Morgan State University and University of Maryland), Head-Roc (internationally known and respected MC/Producer), and DJ 2-Tone Jones (dj and activist).

 

The Urgency of Now
12:10pm, Building 7

Honoring Dr. King and his legacy requires us to look critically at the possessive investment in whiteness and its pernicious causes and consequences. Our nation's failure to enforce civil rights laws promising equal access to education, housing, and employment leave people from different races with very different opportunities.  We have not created a color blind society, but instead have built a society based on the possessive investment in whiteness, on structures, processes, and practices. George Lipsitz is Professor of Black Studies and Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and is the author of The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.

  

Wednesday, January 23
Civic Engagement and Community Empowerment, A lecture by Dolores Huerta
9am & 11am, Highline Student Union (Building 8) - Mt. Constance Room

Dolores Huerta co-founded the United Farm Workers with Cesar E. Chavez.  She is currently the President of the Dolores Huerta Foundation dedicated to Community Organizing.  As the legislative advocate for the Community Service Organization and the United Farm Workers Union, she was instrumental in passing historic legislation from   Disability Insurance for farm workers, Voting ballots in the Spanish language, Driver’s Licenses in the driver’s ethnic language, Eligibility for Public Assistance for resident immigrants, the end of the infamous “bracero” program, and legalization for 1 million farm workers under the Immigration Reform Act of l984-85. Together with Cesar E. Chavez, they established the National Farm Workers Service Center which builds low-income housing throughout the U.S.

 

Prison Industrial Complex
12:10pm, Building 7

With over 2 million people incarcerated in prison each year, America has the highest number of inmates of any industrialized nation.  With new prison facilities being created across the country, this number is only going to rise.  Award winning pro bono attorney and Northwestern Law graduate Beth Colgan will talk about this current phenomena, raise awareness around the motivations for locking people up and connect corporate profit with the prison industry.  

**Please join us for a caucus follow up discussion on the prison industrial complex hosted by our Social Justice Caucus.  Discussion starts at 1:30pm in the Leadership Resource Room(Student Union, 3rd Floor).

 

Thursday, January 24
Boys of Baraka
9am & 12:10pm, Highline Student Union (Building 8) - Mt. Constance

"The Boys of Baraka" documentary reveals the human face of a tragic statistic — 61 percent of Baltimore's African-American boys fail to graduate from high school; 50 percent of them go on to jail. Behind those grim figures lie the grimmer realities of streets ruled by drug dealers, families fractured by addiction and prison and a public school system seemingly surrendered to chaos. Please join highline instructor Monica Lemoine and Devon Brown, both featured in the documentary, as they share with us their experiences with life in Baltimore and the Baraka school.

Social Justice – Personal Reflections and Stories
10am, Building 7

Abdi Sami is a graduate of the University of Southern California, School of Cinema.  He has worked in the film industry for over twenty years having overseen the growth and success of a number of companies.  In the entertainment industry Abdi has worked for Dream Quest Images, Walt Disney Studios, Will Vinton Studios, IDT Entertainment, Starz Entertainment. Abdi has also worked and consulted for a number of non profit organizations, including Mercy Corps, Center for Ethical Leadership, The Film Connection and has served on the board of Foundation for Self Sufficiency in Central America and has been involved with peace and justice organizations in the Puget Sound Area since 2000.

 

Friday, January 25
We Become By Walking: Youth Activism and the Role of Art in Social Movement
11am, Highline Student Union (Building 8), 3rd Floor-Leadership Resource Room

“We Become By Walking” is a powerful new mural created by local artist and activist Jonathan Matas depicting student and youth resistance from the 1960’s to the present. This mural is located in Highline’s new Leadership Resource Room with Student Programs-Center for Leadership and Service.  Jonathan will talk about the imagery in the piece – from the student strikes that created the first ethnic studies programs to Chicanos who protested military recruitment in the barrio to today’s student walkouts against the Iraq war. He will also discuss using art as a means of creative resistance.