WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Imani Perry will speak at the Claiming Williams 2023 evening keynote event on Feb. 2 at 7:30 pm.

 

There will be a pre-seating for the campus at 6:45pm. Williams College students should bring thier Williams ID. Doors open to the public at 7pm.

 

This event will be live-streamed and shown live on WilliNet TV channel 1303 in Williamstown. A link to the live stream will be available on this site closer to the date.

 

According to a press release:

 

Born just nine years after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University was instilled from an early age with an instinct for justice and progressive change.

 

Perry's work reflects the history of Black thought, art, and imagination. It is also informed by her background as a legal historian and her understanding of the racial inequality embedded in American law. 

 

Her latest book, National Book Award-winner "South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation," is a narrative journey through the American South, positioning it as the heart of the American experiment for better and worse. In looking at the South through a historic, personal, and anecdotal lens, Perry asserts that if we do indeed want to build a more humane future for the United States, we must center our concern below the Mason-Dixon Line. 

 

"South to America" was named a best book of 2022 by the New Yorker, Time, Kirkus, and Oprah Daily.

 

Perry's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, New York Magazine, and Harper's, among other publications. She earned her Ph.D. in American Studies from Harvard University, a JD from Harvard Law School, an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center and a BA from Yale College in Literature and American Studies.