I Still Believe Anita Hill: Three Generations Discuss the Legacy of Speaking Truth to Power

The new book I Still Believe Anita Hill: Three Generations Discuss the Legacy of Speaking Truth to Power is now available. The collection grew from last year’s “Sex, Power and Speaking Truth: Anita Hill 20 Years Later” conference. In the fall of 1991, Anita Hill captured the country’s attention when she testified before the US Senate Judiciary Committee describing sexual harassment by Clarence Thomas, who had been her boss and was about to ascend to the Supreme Court. We know what happened: she was challenged, disbelieved, and humiliated; he was given a life-long appointment to decide America’s judicial fate. What is lesser known is how many women and men were inspired by Anita Hill’s bravery, how her testimony changed the feminist movement, and how she singlehandedly brought public awareness to the issue of sexual harassment. Twenty years later, this collection brings together three generations to witness, respond to, and analyze Hill’s impact, and to present insights in law, politics, and the confluence of race, class, and gender. The book is now available for order online.

The book features original contributions from:
Devon W. Carbado, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Edwidge Danticat, Maureen Dowd, Asali DeVan Ecclesiastes, Eve Ensler, Rha Goddess, Cynthia Greenberg, Lani Guinier, Melissa V. Harris-Perry, Anita F. Hill, Deborah Copaken Kogan, Lisa Kron, Catherine A. MacKinnon, Emily May, Lynn Nottage, Charles Ogletree, Mary Oliver, Kathleen Peratis, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Ai-jen Poo, Kevin Powell, Judith Resnik, Amy Richards, Dorothy Samuels, Patricia Schroeder, Congresswoman Louise M. Slaughter, Joanne M. Smith, Gloria Steinem, Hope Anita Smith, Patricia J. Williams, Jamia Wilson, Virginia Valian, and Julie Zeilinger

Faculty Research Seminars

The Cooper Project hosts a monthly seminar series for Greater New Orleans area faculty members whose research and teaching interests focus on gender, race and politics in the South. The seminars are interdisciplinary and engage scholarship from multiple fields, perspectives and methodological approaches. Through the seminars, we hope to create a central meeting place for research and scholarly engagement with race, gender and politics while building cross-institutional support. [Read More]

Youth Essay Competitions

Each year the Cooper Project holds a youth essay competition for students in High School and pre-High School categories. The theme of the competition changes each year and asks students to reflect on a historic or current topic. [ View the 2013 Winners ] [Youth Essay Competitions Page]

Sister Citizen

Sister Citizen is now available in paperback.

Jezebel’s sexual lasciviousness, Mammy’s devotion, and Sapphire’s outspoken anger—these are among the most persistent stereotypes that black women encounter in contemporary American life. Hurtful and dishonest, such representations force African American women to navigate a virtual crooked room that shames them and shapes their experiences as citizens. Many respond by assuming a mantle of strength that may convince others, and even themselves, that they do not need help. But as a result, the unique political issues of black women are often ignored and marginalized.

In this groundbreaking book, Melissa V. Harris-Perry uses multiple methods of inquiry, including literary analysis, political theory, focus groups, surveys, and experimental research, to understand more deeply black women’s political and emotional responses to pervasive negative race and gender images. Not a traditional political science work concerned with office-seeking, voting, or ideology, Sister Citizen instead explores how African American women understand themselves as citizens and what they expect from political organizing. Harris-Perry shows that the shared struggle to preserve an authentic self and secure recognition as a citizen links together black women in America, from the anonymous survivors of Hurricane Katrina to the current First Lady of the United States.

Chefs Move! The John Best & Bride Mayor Scholarships to the International Culinary Center in NY

The mission of Chefs Move! is to diversify kitchen leadership by providing minority applicants the opportunity to train up and become leaders in restaurant kitchens and in their communities.

The John Besh & Bride Mayor Scholarship provides two fully paid scholarships, one in Culinary Arts and one in Pastry Arts, for minority recipients from New Orleans to attend the International Culinary Center in New York City. The program at ICC is nine months and is followed by a two month internship with the Besh Restaurant Group. The scholarship covers the following:

Once the internship has finished, Chefs Move! graduates stay and work in New Orleans for at least two years so that their advanced culinary skills benefit the local area. We hope that our graduates will want to continue working in NOLA for at least five years after the program so that they may become leaders in the kitchen and leaders in the community.

Applications are being accepted from January 1st, 2013 until April 30th, 2013!

Visit the Chefs Move! website

More Information Download the Application

FAAN Mail’s “Talk Backs”

FAAN Mail (Fostering Activism and Alternatives Now!) is a media literacy and media activism project formed by young women of color in Philadelphia. Together with their allies, they seek to critique and create media, with social change in mind. Through this process of “talking back,” as described by feminist scholar bell hooks, and creating new alternatives with each other and teen girls, FAAN Mail deconstructs and challenges hegemonic representations and messages within media and everyday lives.

“Talk Backs” are when FAAN Mail members get together to talk about and talk back to media. They advocate for collective responsibility and urge one another to speak up, to talk back, and to support media that values women of color’s humanity and diversity.

Their recent “Talk Backs” have responded to “Birthday Song” by 2 Chainz, “B**** Bad” by Lupe Fiasco, Miss Representation, and the celebration of Black Girls Rock that aired on BET. You can watch their videos and read about all of their “Talk Backs” here.