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Contemporary Issues in African-American Lives: 2016 National Book Festival



Three authors discuss contemporary issues and human rights movements: Angela J. Davis, “Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor,” Jabari Asim, “Only the Strong,” and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” at the 2016 Library of Congress Book Festival in Washington, D.C.

Speaker Biography: Angela J. Davis is a professor of law at American University’s Washington College of Law and the author of “Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor”. She is an expert in criminal law and procedure and researches prosecutorial power and racism in the criminal justice system. Previously, Davis served as director of the D.C. Public Defender Service, executive director of the National Rainbow Coalition and as a law clerk for the Honorable Theodore R. Newman, the former chief judge of the D.C. Court of Appeals. She is a co-editor of “Criminal Law,” “Trial Stories” and the sixth edition of “Basic Criminal Procedure,” and her articles have been featured in various law reviews. Davis has received the Pauline Ruyle Moore Award, a Soros Senior Justice Fellowship, American University Scholar/Teacher of the Year Award and various other accolades. Davis teaches criminal law, criminal procedure and criminal defense: theory and practice. Her forthcoming book, “Policing the Black Man,” will be available from Pantheon next year.

Speaker Biography: Jabari Asim is an author, poet, playwright and associate professor of writing, literature and publishing at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, where he directs the MFA creative writing program. He is also the executive editor of The Crisis, a preeminent NAACP journal of politics, ideas and culture founded by historian and social activist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1910. Asim’s nonfiction books include “The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why,” “What Obama Means: …For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future,” and “Not Guilty: Twelve Black Men Speak Out on Law, Justice, and Life.” His works of fiction include “A Taste of Honey” and his latest novel, “Only the Strong”. Asim is also the author of several children’s books, including “Whose Toes Are Those?” and “Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington.”

Speaker Biography: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor is an assistant professor in Princeton University’s Center for African American Studies. Her research often examines race and public policy, including American housing policies. Taylor’s articles have been published in Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society, Jacobin, New Politics, the Guardian, In These Times, Black Agenda Report, Ms., International Socialist Review, Al Jazeera America and other publications. Her latest book, “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” , is an examination of history, politics and the development of the social movement Black Lives Matter in response to police violence in the United States.

For transcript and more information, visit https://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=7596


Post time: Jan-14-2017
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