Radical Black Future Series Featuring Dr. Ruha Benjamin

Our Radical Black Future Speaker Series launches at The Forum TODAY. Kicking off our series is Dr. Ruha Benjamin, the author of Imagination: A Manifesto a book described as a field guide for seeding an imagination grounded in solidarity.

The event is held Saturday, June 15th from 6:00pm-7:30pm at the Guthrie Theater downtown Minneapolis.

About The African-American Leadership Forum

Celebrating nearly 20 years of intellectual discourse, this series is part of our ongoing commitment to manifest racial equity through radically innovative solutions. We are a collective of institutions and leaders that serves as a think-and-do tank across Minnesota. Our six impact areas are education, economic prosperity, generational wealth building, public safety, health and environmental justice. We want to create a radical and prosperous future for Black Minnesotans by advancing Black-Centered policies and solutions that actualize true liberation. We envision a tomorrow that is inclusive, vibrant, fair and where Black excellence excels in all forms.

More About Dr. Ruha Benjamin

This award-winning author, Princeton University professor and transformational scholar has been named keynote speaker, for the first in a series of intellectual-discourse themed events, the African American Leadership Forum announced today. Dr. Benjamin is the founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab, housed at Princeton. This distinguished leader is one of the nation’s foremost experts in how to retool data for social justice, having spoken to audiences across the world on eliminating racism.

She’s an esteemed sociologist and professor in the department of African American studies at Princeton. Her work investigates the social dimensions of science, medicine and technology with a focus on the relationship between innovation and inequity, health and justice, knowledge and power. The author of four books, her latest, Imagination: A Manifesto is a proclamation of how to dream big. An invitation to rid our mental and social structures from the tyranny of dominant imaginaries, and a field guide for seeding an imagination grounded in solidarity.

Dr. Benjamin is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including from the American Council of Learned Societies, National Science Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation Freedom Scholar Award and the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Princeton. Her work is published in numerous journals, including Science, Technology, and Human Values; Policy & Society; Ethnicity & Health; and the Annals of the American Academy of Social and Political Science. Benjamin’s work and research have been featured on national and international news outlets, including NBC News, Fast Company, WIRED, Slate Magazine, CBC, CNET, The Guardian, National Geographic and Nature.