The Insurgent Origins of Critical Race Theory: Looking Backwards to Move Forward (Free ABA Webinar)

The ABA Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice and the African American Policy Forum are pleased to collaborate on a four-part webinar series on Critical Race Theory (CRT). Over the past year, Critical Race Theory has been increasingly misrepresented by the Right in an organized, widespread effort to stifle racial justice and gender equity, and weaken our multiracial democracy. In response to these attacks, AAPF held a 5-day Critical Race Theory Summer School in mid-August 2021 to educate participants about the origins, principles, and insights of Critical Race Theory, and to chart a path forward.

This opening segment to this series is an edited version of a conversation that took place on the first day of Summer School, and features some of the leading thinkers in the field of Critical Race Theory Together, the panelists tell the story of how CRT came to be, explore what it teaches us about the world, and discuss how it can now help us protect the very existence of critical thinking about race. This webinar will foreground the subtle but significant ways in which these ideas have been institutionalized and offer participants concrete tools to challenge and dislodge structural inequalities.

Opening Segment Speakers:
Anthony E. Cook – Professor of Law, Author
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw – Co-Founder and Executive Director of African American Policy Forum, Professor of Law
Gloria Ladson-Billings – Pedagogical Theorist, Educator, and Author
Daniel Martinez HoSang – Professor of Ethnicity, Race, and Migration and of American Studies, Author
Gary Peller – Professor of Law, Author
Robert A. Williams, Jr. – Professor of Law, Author

Welcome Remarks from Pamelya Herndon – CEO, KWH Law Center for Social Justice and Change

Moderated by Janel George – Associate Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center; Founding Director, Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic, Georgetown University Law Center