Two acclaimed anti-racism scholars are set to speak to Decatur residents as part of a virtual speaker series over the next few weeks.
The city of Decatur announced Jane Elliott will kick off the Anti-Racism Speaker Series next Thursday, Aug. 27 at noon, and Catherine Meeks will speak on Thursday, Sept. 17 at 6 p.m.
Elliott, a teacher and lecturer, has spoken about racism and discrimination for over five decades. She is known for her “blue eyes/brown eyes” exercise, in which she shows the harmful impact of discrimination by treating some students differently based on their eye color. She first put her third-grade students through the exercise the day after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated,. Videos of Elliott performing the lesson with a group of young children still go viral online from time to time.
Catherine Meeks is the executive director of the Atlanta-based Absalom Jones Center for Racial Healing. A self-described “midwife to the soul,” Meeks has studied racism for over four decades and taught at Wesleyan College.
The city, along with an advisory board, launched the series to educate residents following a summer of protests around the country and a renewed focus on discrimination and systemic racism.
The virtual events are “designed to generate awareness of equity concerns in the city and to hold the city and community accountable for meeting established goals and implementing policies to achieve the aspiration of being an inclusive, equitable and just city,” according to a Facebook post from the city.
Residents can register online for the first speaker event, which will happen over Zoom.
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