The Baton Foundation

Black Language Matters: The Role of Linguistics in Addressing Social and Racial Inequality
2021-08-29 15:00 - 16:30 (America/New_York)
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is excited to offer a lecture about language and social and racial inequity. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Program
What role does language play in the Black Lives Matter movement? How can language, from the words we use to the way our voices sound, affect the ways in which People of Color (POC) engage with social institutions? In this talk, Dr. Nicole Holliday will discuss research on language use in Black communities, language as a tool of empowerment and/or oppression, and linguistic racial profiling. She will also discuss her own recent research about what it means to “sound Black” and how language is a crucial part of identity, especially for individuals from historically disenfranchised groups. Finally, Dr. Holliday will challenge participants to think through the ways in which language affects (in)equality in their own communities.
About Nicole Holliday
Dr. Nicole Holliday is an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her Ph.D. in linguistics from New York University in 2016, where she wrote a dissertation entitled “Intonational Variation, Linguistic Style and the Black/Biracial Experience.” Her research focuses on what it means to sound Black, both phonetically and socially, and from the perspectives of both speakers and listeners. Her work has appeared in scholarly venues such as Journal of Sociolinguistics, Laboratory Phonology, and American Speech. She has also made appearances in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Washington Post.
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Slavery, Fatherhood, & Paternal Duty
2021-06-20 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is thrilled to offer a special Father’s Day lecture about Black fatherhood throughout the nineteenth century—during and after Black enslavement. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
In Slavery, Fatherhood, & Paternal Duty (The University of North Carolina Press, 2020), Libra R. Hilde analyzes published and archival oral histories of formerly enslaved Blacks to explore the meanings of manhood and fatherhood during and after the era of slavery, demonstrating that Black men and women articulated a surprisingly broad and consistent vision of paternal duty across more than a century. Complicating the tendency among historians to conflate masculinity within slavery with heroic resistance, Hilde emphasizes that, while some enslaved men openly rebelled, many chose subtle forms of resistance in the context of family and local community. She explains how a significant number of enslaved men served as caretakers to their children and shaped their lives and identities. From the standpoint of enslavers, this was particularly threatening–a man who fed his children built up the master’s property, but a man who fed them notions of autonomy put cracks in the edifice of slavery.
Fatherhood highlighted the agonizing contradictions of the condition of enslavement, and to be an involved father was to face intractable dilemmas, yet many men tried. By telling the story of the often quietly heroic efforts that enslaved men undertook to be fathers, Hilde reveals how formerly enslaved African Americans evaluated their fathers (including white fathers) and envisioned an honorable manhood. Purchase books here.
About the Author
Libra Hilde is a professor of history at San José State University. She holds a Ph.D. in history from Harvard and a B.A. in history and Native American Studies from U.C. Berkeley.
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Photo Credit for Professor Hilde: Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University

En Pointe: A Conversation with Ashton Edwards
2021-06-06 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with CNP and the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is excited to present a facilitated conversation between ballet dancer Ashton Edwards and Daryl Foster. This program is free to the public, but registration is required. NOTE: All times are Eastern Daylight Time (EDT). You may register here.
About Ashton Edwards
Ballet Dancer Ashton Edwards is originally from Flint, Michigan. He began dancing at age 4 at the Flint School of Performing Arts. For four years, Ashton was a member of the Flint Youth Ballet, the most advanced dance ensemble of the FSPA (Flint School Performing Arts). Over the course of his career, Ashton has attended summer ballet intensives on full scholarships at The Joffrey Academy of Dance in Chicago, Houston Ballet School, and Pacific Northwest Ballet School. In 2018, Ashton represented his home city of Flint in the NACCP National Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) competition in San Antonio, Texas, and won a bronze medal in the Performing Arts/Ballet category. Currently, Ashton is training at Pacific Northwest Ballet School (PNB) as a Professional Division student. PNB School’s two-year Professional Division offers advanced instructions for students planning a professional dance career. Acceptance to the program is by invitation only. Ashton is also training en pointe at PNB in hopes of someday having a gender-non-conforming career with a professional ballet company.
About Daryl L. Foster
Daryl L. Foster began training at the age of 18 as a student at the University of Alabama. As a student, he secured scholarships to Harvard Summer Dance, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, and two full scholarships to the American Dance Festival at Duke University. Upon completion of his undergraduate degree (BA in dance and English), Daryl joined the renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance Company as a Dancer with DCDC2 in Dayton, Ohio. He also began exploring musical theater as an ensemble member of the University of Southern Indiana’s performance company at the Lincoln Boyhood National Monument. There, he performed roles in The Music Man, The Sound of Music, and the title show, Young Abe Lincoln. Daryl would later relocate to New York City–dancing in an opera about Nelson Mandela and working in an administrative capacity for Urban Bush Women.
After September 11, 2001, Daryl reassessed his professional trajectory and completed an MFA in performance and choreography at Florida State University. Degree in hand, Daryl took a position to direct and teach dance at Booker Middle School for the Performing Arts before moving to Atlanta in 2006. In Atlanta, Daryl was offered an adjunct professor position at Kennesaw State University. He also held faculty positions at Spelman College, Agnes Scott College, and the University of Georgia. In 2010, Daryl partnered with Terry Slade to premiere LIFT Men. Dance. Life., a showcase featuring male dancers and choreographers working together to discuss and create work about men of color and the issues they face. Daryl also created EMERGING: A New Choreographers Showcase to nurture, develop, and present the work of aspiring choreographers. Twice a year, the EMERGING process takes ten choreographers through an immersive process that culminates in a fully produced performance. A signature component of the program is feedback from industry professionals.
Currently, Daryl continues to write, produce, and direct. He also is expanding LIFT to an artist management company. Daryl is from Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
About the Facilitator
Darian Aaron has a career in media that spans nearly two decades. His byline has appeared in both print and digital formats. Darian is currently the Communications Director for CNP and Editor-At-Large of The Reckoning, a CNP online publication and 2021 GLAAD Media Award Nominee for outstanding blog. Darian’s career also includes radio and television news, most recently as a general assignment reporter for CBS affiliate WRBL in Columbus, Georgia.
Darian is the creator of the award-winning blog, Living Out Loud with Darian—a blog created to provide a platform for stories impacting LGBTQ+ communities of color. Prompted by demand from his loyal followers, he launched Living Out Loud 2.0 in spring 2020.
Much of Darian’s digital and social justice work advocates on behalf of LGBTQ+ people of color, with a particular focus on the intersection of race, sexuality and religious intolerance as seen in his previous blog and coffee-table book, When Love Takes Over: A Celebration of SGL Couples of Color. Additionally, Darian made history as the first African American Editor-in-Chief of Atlanta’s Georgia Voice newspaper.
Darian has used his voice in support of LGBTQ+ equality and visibility on television and in print as a contributor to several publications: CLIK Magazine (Staff Writer), The Advocate, The LA Times, The Huffington Post, EBONY Magazine, Project Q Atlanta and The Montgomery Advertiser, among others.
In 2011, he was one of a dozen LGBTQ+ leaders selected to attend GLAADs first Media institute in New York City. In 2012, he became one of few openly gay Black men to be profiled in EBONY Magazine in the featured piece Black, Gay and Christian: Where Spirituality and Sexuality Converge.
As an undergraduate student at Alabama State University, Darian founded AMPLIFIED, the first LGBTQ+ chartered student organization in the university’s history. He graduated Magna Cum Laude in 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts in broadcast journalism. Darian honed his craft as an intern at WSFA 12 News and WVAS FM 90.7 in Montgomery, Alabama.
Before moving to Atlanta, Darian was a professional dancer in New York, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Darian is a native of Montgomery, AL and a member of The National Association of Black Journalists.
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Photo Credit: Pacific Northwest Ballet School Professional Division student Ashton Edwards ©En Avant Photography

Black Boys in the 21st Century: The Importance of Cultural Heritage Training
2021-05-16 15:00 - 16:30
We must impress upon our children that even when troubles rise to seven-point-one on life’s Richter scale, they must be anchored so deeply that, though they sway, they will not topple. ~Mamie Till Mobley
It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. ~Frederick Douglass
Orientation Overview
Initiated in 2016, The Baton Foundation is excited to host its sixth annual Cultural Heritage Program orientation. This program is free to the public, but registration is required. You may register here.
It is common to hear people say these days, “This is 2021, how can (insert social issue here) be happening?” What often is overlooked is the fact that countries, like people, have a history, a story, a narrative. Black people in the United States have a unique history—one frequently, although not always, rooted in enslavement. More broadly, the story of Black people in the United States often was told by others, and for reasons not meant to edify or to inspire, much less to reflect truth.
The Baton Foundation’s Cultural Heritage program is designed to give Black boys ages 10-17 opportunities to learn about Black history and culture in an intimate, supportive environment. In bi-weekly seminars, students explore various aspects of the Black experience in the United States and around the world. Additionally, they work with Baton Foundation facilitators to explore notions of self-awareness and self-mastery. The program also provides opportunities for students to explore many of Atlanta’s cultural venues and to engage in educational travel to local and regional historic and cultural sites.
During the orientation, attendees will learn more about the program and have an opportunity to ask questions of the program’s founder, Baton Foundation board members, and Cultural Heritage Program students.
Register for Zoom Orientation Here
Photo Credit: Adinah Morgan for The Baton Foundation (Cultural Heritage Program students at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, 2019)

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to Civil War
2021-05-02 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, will host a lecture about the confluence of Mexican and United States history during the antebellum era. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to Civil War (Basic Books, 2020), tells the story of the enslaved Blacks who escaped to Mexico in the four decades leading up to the U.S. Civil War. Focusing its attention on a not-well-known chapter of U.S. history, the book contributes to the canon a better understanding of Mexico’s rise as an antislavery republic and its overlooked significance to the United States.
In South to Freedom, Professor Baumgartner tells the story of why Mexico abolished slavery and how its increasingly radical antislavery policies fueled the sectional crisis in the United States. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery’s future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states. South to Freedom is a revelatory and essential new perspective on antebellum America and the causes of the Civil War. PURCHASE BOOK HERE.
About the Author
Alice Baumgartner is an assistant professor of history at the University of Southern California. She holds a Ph.D. from Yale University and an M.Phil. in Latin American Studies from the University of Oxford where she was a Rhodes Scholar. Her first book, South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to Civil War, was selected as an Editor’s Choice by The New York Times Book Review and as a finalist for the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize.
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It's in the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior
2021-04-25 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is honored to host a conversation between author Steve Fiffer and Al Vivian about the life and work of his father, Civil Rights Movement icon Dr. C. T. Vivian. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
The wisdom acquired during C. T. Vivian’s nine decades is generously shared in It’s in the Action: Memories of a Nonviolent Warrior (NewSouth Books, 2021), the civil rights legend’s memoir of his life and times in the movement. Born in Missouri in 1924, Vivian lived twenty-four years in Illinois before moving to Nashville, where he earned a degree in theology and joined John Lewis, Diane Nash, and others to integrate the city in 1960. After being imprisoned and beaten during the Freedom Rides, he joined Dr. King at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Atlanta and played leading roles in integration and voting rights campaigns in Birmingham, AL; St. Augustine, FL; and Selma, AL. Over the next half century, he became internationally known for his work for education and civil and human rights and against racism, hatred, and economic inequality. In 2013, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Vivian passed away peacefully in Atlanta on July 17, 2020.
Vivian was never defined by discrimination and hardship, although he faced many instances of both. The late civil rights leader’s heart-wrenching and inspiring stories from a lifetime of nonviolent activism come just in time for a new generation of activists; similarly responding to systems of injustice, violence, and oppression. It’s in the Action is a record of a life dedicated to selflessness and morality, qualities achieved by Vivian that we can all aspire to. Bearing a foreword from Andrew Young, the memoir is an important addition to civil rights history and to the understanding of movement principles and strategies. Purchase books here.
C.T. Vivian was a role model for so many of us in the 1960s era of civil rights activism, a legendary champion of nonviolence, and a mighty and indispensable long haul moral warrior for justice. This memoir will give a new generation the chance to learn about his legacy of wisdom and service in his own words. ~Marian Wright Edelman, Founder & President Emerita, Children’s Defense Fund
We as students in the Nashville movement felt more mature when Dr. C.T. Vivian was with us. I know what it is like to have your teacher in a jail cell with you for 24 hours. You never miss class. ~Reverend Dr. Bernard LaFayette
Read Recent Washington Post Review Here
About the Co-Author
Steve Fiffer is the author of more than a dozen nonfiction books, including award winning collaborations with Southern Poverty Law Center founder Morris Dees, human rights activist Dr. Quentin Young, and former Secretary of State James Baker (a New York Times bestseller). His book, Jimmie Lee and James: Two Lives, Two Deaths, and the Movement that Changed America, was a finalist for the Harlem Book Fair’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2015. A Guggenheim Fellowship winner, Fiffer is a graduate of Yale and the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Evanston with his wife, novelist Sharon Fiffer.
About Al Vivian
Al Vivian is President & CEO of the Atlanta-based BASIC Diversity, Inc. (BASIC), the nation’s longest serving diversity & inclusion firm, founded by his father, Dr. C.T. Vivian. Over the past 25+ years, Al has worked actively as a trainer and consultant to numerous Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, professional firms, non-profits and academic institutions. A former Army Captain, Mr. Vivian specializes in Inclusive Leadership — teaching leaders the skills and competencies to effectively lead across cultures.
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An African American and Latinx History of the United States
2021-04-11 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is excited to host a lecture about the consequential role Blacks, Latinx and Indigenous peoples played in creating the United States. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
Spanning more than two hundred years, An African American and Latinx History of the United States (Beacon Press, 2018) is a revolutionary, politically charged narrative history, arguing that the “Global South” was crucial to the development of America as we know it. Scholar and activist Paul Ortiz challenges the notion of westward progress as exalted by widely taught formulations like “manifest destiny” and “Jacksonian democracy,” and shows how placing Black, Latinx, and Indigenous voices unapologetically front and center transforms U.S. history into one of the working class organizing against imperialism.
Drawing on rich narratives and primary source documents, Ortiz links racial segregation in the Southwest and the rise and violent fall of a powerful tradition of Mexican labor organizing in the twentieth century, to May 1, 2006, known as International Workers’ Day, when migrant laborers—Chicana/os, Afro-Cubans, and immigrants from every continent on earth—united in resistance on the first “Day Without Immigrants.” As Black civil rights activists fought Jim Crow laws and Mexican labor organizers warred against the suffocating grip of capitalism, Black and Spanish-language newspapers, abolitionists, and Latin American revolutionaries coalesced around movements built between people from the United States and people from Central America and the Caribbean. In stark contrast to the resurgence of “America First” rhetoric, Black and Latinx intellectuals and organizers today have historically urged the United States to build bridges of solidarity with the nations of the Americas.
Incisive and timely, this bottom-up history, told from the interconnected vantage points of Latinx and Black Americans, reveals the radically different ways that people of the diaspora have addressed issues still plaguing the United States today, and it offers a way forward in the continued struggle for universal civil rights. An African American and Latinx History of the United States won the 2018 PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. PURCHASE BOOK HERE.
A concise, alternate history of the United States…A sleek, vital history that effectively shows how, “from the outset, inequality was enforced with the whip, the gun, and the United States Constitution.” —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
An epic, panoramic account of class struggles in the Western Hemisphere. At center stage are the Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people who built the “new world.” —Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination
Paul Ortiz’s “African American and Latinx History of the United States” provides an essential frame for understanding how freedom struggles dating back to the eighteenth century inform today’s entrenched inequality and systemic racism across diasporas. This is a necessary text for reconceptualizing American history, and Ortiz meticulously establishes historical precedent for multiethnic coalition building that extends beyond geographical borders to restore dignity and architect descriptive and substantive representation. —Sonja Diaz, executive director of the University of California, Los Angeles, Latino Policy and Politics Initiative
About the Author
Paul Ortiz is director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program and professor of history at the University of Florida. He serves on the Faculty Advisory Council for the University of Florida Center for Latin American Studies.
Dr. Ortiz is a third-generation military veteran and a first-generation university graduate. His pathway to academia included years of organizing work with the United Farm Workers, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee, AFSCME and many other unions. He is currently president of the United Faculty of Florida-UF (FEA/NEA/AFT/AFL-CIO) the union that represents tenured and non-tenure-track faculty at the University of Florida. In 2013, he received the César E. Chávez Action and Commitment Award from the Florida Education Association, AFL-CIO.
Dr. Ortiz co-edited Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell About Life in the Segregated South which received the Lillian Smith Book Award from the Southern Regional Council. He also has published essays in Latino Studies, The American Historical Review, Cultural Dynamics, The Oral History Review, Truthout, Southern Exposure, Kalfou, the Florida Historical Quarterly, and many other journals. Additionally, Professor Ortiz has been interviewed by Agencia De Noticias Del Estado Mexicano, ARD German Radio and Television, Newsweek, Telemundo, The Guardian, The Undefeated, ABC News, BBC, Hong Kong Daily Apple, and a variety of media on the histories of voter suppression, social movements, immigration, Latinx & African American history among other topics.
Professor Ortiz received his Ph.D. in history from Duke University in 2000. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the Evergreen State College in 1990 and his Associate of Arts degree from Olympic College in 1988. Currently, Dr. Ortiz is finishing three books. Among them, People Power: History, Organizing, and Larry Goodwyn’s Democratic Vision in the Twenty-First Century which will be published by the University Press of Florida in 2021.
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Madam C. J. Walker's Gospel of Giving: Black Women's Philanthropy During Jim Crow
2021-03-21 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is excited to host a conversation about Madam C. J. Walker’s legacy of philanthropy between author Dr. Tyrone Freeman and Erika M. Smith. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
Founder of a beauty empire, Madam C. J. Walker (1867-1919) was celebrated in the early 1900s as America’s first self-made female millionaire. Known as a leading Black entrepreneur, Walker was also devoted to an activist philanthropy aimed at empowering Blacks and challenging the injustices inflicted by Jim Crow.
In Madam C. J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving (University of Illinois Press, 2020), Tyrone McKinley Freeman highlights how giving shaped Walker’s life before and after she became wealthy. Poor and widowed when she arrived in St. Louis in her twenties, Walker found mentorship among Black churchgoers and working Black women. Her adoption of faith, racial uplift, education, and self-help soon informed her dedication to assisting Black women’s entrepreneurship, financial independence, and activism. Walker embedded her philanthropy in how she grew her business, forged alliances with groups like the National Association of Colored Women, funded schools and social service agencies led by Black women and enlisted her company’s sales agents in local charity and advocacy work.
Illuminating and dramatic, Madam C. J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving broadens our understanding of Black women’s charitable giving and establishes Walker as a foremother of Black philanthropy. PURCHASE BOOK HERE.
This is no simple story of Madam Walker’s charitable giving. Instead, by spanning the course of Walker’s remarkable life from the daughter of enslaved parents to beauty culture mogul, Tyrone McKinley Freeman’s brilliant and impeccably researched book demonstrates that wealth did not drive Walker to give, but that she was the embodiment of a much longer, though often hidden, tradition of Black philanthropy. This book will forever change the way we understand Walker’s importance and provides a much-needed context for contemporary calls for economic justice. –Tiffany Gill, author of Beauty Shop Politics: African American Women’s Activism in the Beauty Industry.
About the Author
Tyrone McKinley Freeman is an award-winning writer, speaker and teacher whose work examines the intersections of philanthropy, activism, and race in America. A nationally recognized expert in Black philanthropy, he writes and speaks about various forms of Black generosity and social change, past and present. Currently, Professor Freeman is an assistant professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. He also conducts workshops on fundraising and leadership for nonprofit organizations.
Prior to becoming a professor, Dr. Freeman was a fundraising professional and raised money for a range of nonprofit organizations in community economic development, youth and family services, and higher education. He also served as associate director of the world-renowned The Fund Raising School, where he wrote curricula and trained fundraisers and other nonprofit leaders across the United States and in Asia, Africa and Europe.
Professor Freeman is author of Madam C.J. Walker’s Gospel of Giving: Black Women’s Philanthropy During Jim Crow (University of Illinois Press, 2020), and co-author of Race, Gender and Leadership in Nonprofit Organizations (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), which explores the personal lives and professional challenges of Black and women nonprofit executive leaders.
A proud HBCU alum, Professor Freeman graduated from Lincoln University (PA) with a B.A. in English. He earned a Masters of Urban and Regional Planning from Ball State University, and a M.S. in Adult Education from Indiana University. Dr. Freeman is the first African American to earn a Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
His work has appeared or been cited in TIME, O: The Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, NewsOne, Blavity, Chicago Tribune, The Conversation, Black Perspectives, Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the Stanford Social Innovations Review.
About Erika M. Smith

Erika M. Smith is a creative, social innovator focused on reinvigorating communities, cultivating small businesses, and preserving culture. She leads the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Economic Opportunity work, including developing the portfolio investment strategy, providing thought-leadership, and expanding partnerships, influence, and policy work to increase residents’ economic well-being in Atlanta’s Southside.

Before joining the Casey Foundation as a senior associate, Erika served as Assistant Director of Southside Community and Economic Development with Invest Atlanta, where she led a regional strategy focused on economic opportunity and mobility in Atlanta’s under-served communities. Previous to Invest Atlanta, Erika was an External Affairs Manager of Research and Strategic Initiatives with Select Fulton, where she led the development of the Economic Opportunity strategic plan and initiatives to improve business retention, address workforce needs, and nurturing small business growth.

Erika’s career spans 20 years, including creating a pre-paid debit card ecosystem in Nigeria, working in strategic marketing functions at JPMorganChase, GMAC Insurance, and Bank of America, co-creating Uhuru Concepts, a social innovation and marketing firm.

Erika is a member of the Board of Directors for the Georgia Micro Enterprise Network and Village Micro Fund and the former Co-Chair of Team Empower Committee for the Beltline Partnership’s AB67, and former Chair of the Board of Directors for Living Walls, the City Speaks. She is an alumnus of the ULI Class of 2015 and the United Way VIP Program.

She is a proud graduate of Florida A&M University, an avid international traveler, an ardent supporter of the arts, a lover of hip hop, and lives in Southwest Atlanta.

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Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959
2021-03-07 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library for African American Culture and History, is thrilled to offer a lecture about the life and work of civil rights activist Helen Nannie Burroughs. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879–1961) is one of many Black intellectuals whose work has been long excluded from the literary canon. In her time, Burroughs was a celebrated Black female activist (or “race woman”), educator, and intellectual.
Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959 (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019), represents a landmark contribution to the Black intellectual historical project by allowing readers to experience Burroughs in her own words. This anthology of her works written between 1900 and 1959 encapsulates Burroughs’ work as a theologian, philosopher, activist, educator, intellectual, and evangelist, as well as the myriad ways her career resisted definition.
During her life, Burroughs rubbed elbows with Black historical icons such as W. E. B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Anna Julia Cooper, Mary Church Terrell, and Mary McLeod Bethune, and these interactions represent much of the existing, easily available literature on her life.
This book aims to spark a conversation about Burroughs’ life and work by making available her own tracts on God, sin, the intersections of church and society, Black womanhood, education, and social justice. Moreover, the volume is an important addition to the growing movement toward excavating Black intellectual and philosophical thought and reformulating the literary canon to bring a diverse array of voices to the table. PURCHASE BOOK HERE.
About the Author
Kelisha B. Graves is a higher education educator, author, and speaker. She is completing a doctorate in educational leadership with a concentration in higher education. Professor Graves is an interdisciplinary and global scholar whose research interests include educational leadership and administration, teaching and learning, culturally responsive pedagogy and assessment, curriculum planning and development, educational technology, socio-cultural knowledges, critical race theory, Africana philosophy, and African American intellectual history. She also maintains interests in global education policy and international development with a specific focus on Africa. Graves has delivered lectures to national and international audiences. She has authored and/or co-authored works in the fields of education, Black history, and philosophy.
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A Sense of Connection
2021-02-14 14:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History is proud to present a film screening of A Sense of Connection—a documentary film about the spiritual motivations that influence Black artists in the African Diaspora. Following the screening, filmmaker Tony Romero will field questions from attendees. This program is free to the public, but registration is required. NOTE: Times are Eastern Time.
About the Film
A Sense of Connection (90 mins.) is a documentary that looks at the spiritual motivations in the works of various Black visual artists. It describes a journey marked by a strong African heritage connection. The artists, from the United States, Mexico, Equatorial Guinea, Spain and Cuba, share experiences and reflect on the history of the African Diaspora, Black art and the willingness to write one’s own story. The project’s goal is to build bridges among the entire international Black community. This film was created in collaboration with Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Gallery 992, Sistagraphy, Projects Foundation Shelia Turner y Spec Turner Music.
About the Filmmaker
Tony Romero is a director, producer and screenwriter, trained in the school of Cuban cinema. For twenty years, he has dedicated his life to film and television, and worked with producers in Cuba, Haiti, Japan and Spain. Romero has taught courses, workshops, and presented at conferences. His work has taken him to many of the education, film and cultural spaces in Spain, Morocco, Equatorial Guinea, the United States among others. Romero is a member of the National Union of Writers Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the General Society of Authors and Editors (SGAE). He currently works for the Spanish producer TR Movies.
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The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti
2021-02-07 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library for African American Culture and History, is excited to kick off the 2021 program year with a lecture by Professor Brandon Byrd about post-Civil War sentiments U.S. Blacks held toward Haiti. This program is free to the public, but registration is required.
About the Book
In The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti (The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), Brandon R. Byrd explores the ambivalent attitudes that Black American leaders in the post-Civil War era held toward Haiti, the first and only Black republic in the Western Hemisphere. Following emancipation, Black American leaders of all kinds—politicians, journalists, ministers, writers, educators, artists, and diplomats—identified new and urgent connections with Haiti, a nation long understood as an example of Black self-determination. They celebrated not only its diplomatic recognition by the United States but also the renewed relevance of the Haitian Revolution.
While a number of Black leaders in the United States defended the sovereignty of a republic whose fate they saw as intertwined with their own, others expressed concern over Haiti’s fitness as a model Black nation–scrutinizing whether it truly reflected the “civilized” progress of the Black race. Influenced by the imperialist rhetoric of their day, many Black Americans across the political spectrum espoused a politics of racial uplift, taking responsibility for the “improvement” of Haitian education, politics, culture, and society. They considered Haiti an uncertain experiment in Black self-governance: it might succeed and vindicate the capabilities of U.S.-born Blacks demanding their own right to self-determination or it might fail and condemn the Black diasporic population to second-class status for the foreseeable future.
When the United States military occupied Haiti in 1915, it created a crisis for W. E. B. DuBois and other Black activists and intellectuals who had long grappled with the meaning of Haitian independence. The resulting demand for, and idea of, a liberated Haiti became a cornerstone of the anti-capitalist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist radical Black internationalism that flourished between World War I and World War II. Spanning the Reconstruction, post-Reconstruction, and Jim Crow eras, The Black Republic recovers a crucial and overlooked chapter of Black internationalism and political thought. PURCHASE BOOK HERE.
About the Author
Brandon R. Byrd is an Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University. His research focuses on nineteenth and twentieth-century Black intellectual and social history, with a special interest in Black internationalism. He is the author of The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti and he is currently writing a transnational and grassroots history of the post-emancipation United States.
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Remembering Our Future: Relying on Each Other to Restore Hope & Healing
2020-12-06 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is honored to host a lecture on hope and healing by Dr. Joyce E. King. This program is free, but registration is required.
About the Program
Sankofa (the Adinkra symbol pictured above) teaches us that it is not “taboo to go back and fetch what is at risk of being left behind.” We remember our Ancestors to deepen our sense of identity, to seek to know, to clarify, to remember, to understand the ways our fathers and mothers carried on the struggle for integrity and freedom in their time. Relying on each other we can restore hope and healing for our children and for future generations.
About the Speaker
Joyce E. King is the Benjamin E. Mays Endowed Chair for Urban Teaching, Learning and Leadership and Professor of Educational Policy Studies in the College of Education & Human Development at Georgia State University.
Widely respected in the fields of urban education and the sociology of education, King’s research has contributed to the knowledge base on preparing teachers for diversity and curriculum theorizing through her scholarship, teaching practice and leadership. She served on the Curriculum Commission of the State Board of Education.
King has lectured in educational and community organizations in the United States, Brazil, Canada, England, Mali, Senegal, Japan, Jamaica and New Zealand. She has shared her expertise in diversity transformation as a training consultant with civic and human rights organizations and higher education institutions in the U.S. and abroad. She has served as President of the Board of Directors of Food First (Institute for Food and Development Policy, Oakland, California).
A dynamic leader and visionary teacher/scholar, King has a wealth of academic, administrative and leadership experience in public, private and non-profit settings, including historical Black and predominately white colleges and universities. She has created numerous opportunities for emergent leaders of diverse backgrounds to progress in their careers. Her accomplishments reflect an emphasis on innovative interdisciplinary scholarship, culturally connected teaching and learning and inclusive transformative leadership for change often in creative partnership with communities.
King’s recent publications include the Harvard Educational Review, The Handbook of Research on Black Education, The Handbook of Research on Teacher Education and Voices of Historical and Contemporary Black Pioneers. In addition, King organized and edited a landmark book, Black Education: A Transformative Research and Action Agenda for the New Century that was published for the American Educational Research Association (2005).
Dr. King served as the 2015 president of the American Educational Research Association. In 2018 she received the Stanford Graduate School of Education Alumni Excellence in Education Award.
Register for the Zoom Lecture Here

White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity
2020-11-22 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation, in partnership with the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History, is excited to offer a discussion and Q & A with Dr. Robert Jones about his book, White Too Long. This program is free, but registration is required.
About the Book
Drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience, Robert P. Jones delivers a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for white Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
As the nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in America, Christianity’s role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has been largely overlooked. But white Christians—from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast—have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project of protecting white supremacy and opposing Black equality that has framed the entire American story.
With his family’s 1815 Bible in one hand and contemporary public opinion surveys by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in the other, Robert P. Jones delivers a groundbreaking analysis of the repressed history of the symbiotic relationship between Christianity and white supremacy. White Too Long demonstrates how deeply racist attitudes have become embedded in the DNA of white Christian identity over time and calls for an honest reckoning with a complicated, painful, and even shameful past.
Drawing on lessons gleaned from case studies of communities beginning to face these challenges, Jones argues that contemporary white Christians must confront these unsettling truths because this is the only way to salvage the integrity of their faith and their own identities. More broadly, it is no exaggeration to say that not just the future of white Christianity but the outcome of the American experiment is at stake. Purchase books here.
About the Author
Robert P. Jones is the CEO and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic online, NBC Think, and other outlets. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He holds a Ph.D. in religion from Emory University and a M.Div. from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion.
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Contagions of Empire: A Conversation With Professor Khary Polk
2020-11-08 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation is excited to host an author discussion with Professor Khary Polk about his recently published book, Contagions of Empire. This program is free, but registration is required.
About the Book
Contagions of Empire: Scientific Racism, Sexuality, and Black Military Workers Abroad, 1898-1948 (University of North Carolina Press, June 2020) examines how the movement of Black soldiers and nurses around the world in the early-to-mid twentieth century challenged U.S. military ideals of race, nation, and honor.
From 1898 onward, the expansion of United States militarism and empire abroad increasingly relied on Black labor, even as policy remained infected both by scientific racism and by fears of contagion. Black men and women were mobilized for service in the Spanish-Cuban-American War (1898) under the War Department’s belief that southern Blacks carried an immunity against tropical diseases.
Later, in World Wars I and II, Black troops were stigmatized as members of a contagious “venereal race” and were subjected to experimental medical treatments meant to curtail their sexual desires. By turns feared as contagious and at other times valued for their immunity, Black men and women played an important part in the U.S. military’s conscription of racial, gender, and sexual difference, even as they exercised their embattled agency at home and abroad.
By following the scientific, medical, and cultural history of Black enlistment through the archive of American militarism, this book traces the Black subjects and agents of empire as they came into contact with a world globalized by warfare.
About the Author
Khary Oronde Polk is an Associate Professor of Black Studies & Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies at Amherst College. He is a cultural historian of the African diaspora, a specialist in LGBTQ studies, and a scholar of race, gender, and sexuality in the U.S. military. Polk received his Ph.D. in American Studies from New York University, and teaches courses on Black sexuality, military history, Black European studies, race & the American imagination, and queer theory. He has written for the Studio Museum of Harlem, The Journal of Negro History, Women’s Studies Quarterly, Gawker, and the journal Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly. Polk has also contributed essays to a number of queer of color anthologies, including If We Have To Take Tomorrow, Corpus, and Think Again.
Register for the Zoom Lecture Here

Homemade Citizenship: All But Inviting Injury
2020-10-25 15:00 - 16:30
The Baton Foundation is thrilled to host an author discussion about American citizenship vis-à-vis the Black experience in the United States. This program is free, but registration is required.
Program Narrative
Even when they embody everything the nation claims to respect, Black people cannot count on being treated like citizens. Simply consider the Black soldiers and nurses who served in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII only to be disfranchised and denigrated…or consider the Ivy League-educated constitutional lawyer who rose to the office of president only to face demands that he “show his papers,” his birth certificate and academic transcripts. Though their success will not likely bring them the safety and respectability it should, Black people seem to cling to all that purportedly makes one an ideal citizen, including the heteronormative nuclear family and its traditional household. What does this pattern of investing against the odds reveal about Black culture in the United States? The short answer: homemade citizenship.
About the Book
In From Slave Cabins to the White House (University of Illinois Press, August 2020), Koritha Mitchell analyzes canonical texts by and about Black women to lay bare the hostility these women face as they invest in traditional domesticity. Instead of the respectability and safety granted White homemakers, Black women endure pejorative labels, racist governmental policies, attacks on their citizenship, and aggression meant to keep them in “their place.”
Tracing how Black people define and redefine success in a nation determined to deprive them of it, Mitchell plumbs the works of Frances Harper, Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, and others. These artists honor Black homes from slavery and post-emancipation through the Modern Civil Rights era to “post-racial” America. Mitchell follows Black families asserting their citizenship in domestic settings while the larger society and culture marginalize and attack them, not because they are deviants or failures but because they meet American standards.
About the Author
Koritha Mitchell is a literary historian, cultural critic, and associate professor of English at Ohio State University. She is author of Living with Lynching: African American Lynching Plays, Performance, and Citizenship, which won book awards from the American Theatre and Drama Society and from the Society for the Study of American Women Writers. Professor Mitchell is editor of the Broadview Edition of Frances Harper’s 1892 novel Iola Leroy, and her articles include “James Baldwin, Performance Theorist, Sings the Blues for Mister Charlie,” published by American Quarterly, and “Love in Action,” which appeared in Callaloo and draws parallels between lynching and violence against LGBTQ+ communities. Her second monograph, From Slave Cabins to the White House: Homemade Citizenship in African American Culture, was published in August 2020 by the University of Illinois Press. Her commentary has appeared in outlets such as CNN, Good Morning America, The Huffington Post, NBC News, PBS Newshour, and NPR’s Morning Edition. On Twitter, she’s @ProfKori.
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Wakanda Forever: Remembering the Life and Work of Chadwick Boseman
2020-09-27 15:00 - 17:00
The Baton Foundation will host a community discussion to celebrate Chadwick Boseman’s life and extraordinary work. This program is free. Registration is required.
About the Program
The world seemed to stop, if only briefly, when Chadwick Aaron Boseman died on August 28, 2020. His short life was exceptional and steeped in history. Over the course of five years (2013-2018), Boseman played four characters central to the history of the United States and to the Black community, in particular: Jackie Robinson, James Brown, Thurgood Marshall, and T’Challa. Later this year, the world will see Boseman in his final role as Levee, a trumpeter in the film Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom—adapted from the August Wilson play of the same name.
Many believe Boseman’s life was “touched by the ancestors” — that he was a messenger sent to remind us not only of the tragedies we have faced, but also to put before us examples of the resilience within each individual and our community’s determination to never be deterred.
During this program, panelists will help us place Boseman’s work and life within the context of U.S. history and help us think about the role of film with regards to Black representation. Integral to this program will be the thoughts and voices of our community—those in attendance.
About the Panelist
Yema Thomas is a blossoming art historian and visual/performing artist. In her current role as Coordinator of Public Programs at the High Museum of Art Atlanta, she works to educate and develop programs to showcase the presence of dynamic cultural activities within her community. Before devoting her full-time work to the High Museum of Art, Yema established a Diasporic dance program called AfroHeat with the City of Atlanta’s Office of Parks and Recreation which furthered her commitment to fostering arts and culture-based programming for the City’s youth, seniors and adults.
Yema’s professional and personal affiliations speak to her determination to serve as a lifetime cultural liaison and to celebrate the interconnectedness of places and peoples throughout the African diaspora. Her current research explores connections in African diasporic music and movement with a focus on a distinctly relevant “circle of influence,” beginning with African retentions in the United States and the Caribbean and how those cultural products (i.e. Jazz, Salsa, and Konpa) have been reintroduced to Africa, contemporarily, in the form of Kizomba and Afro-Zouk.
Yema is interested in explorations of Identity. She firmly believes that no matter how far an individual has travelled from “home,” there will always be aspects of physical, spiritual and intellectual ties to reconnect them to their ancestral roots. Yema was thrilled to work as an extra in the film Black Panther.
Kevin Sipp is a visual artist, writer, graphic novelist, curator and arts administrator living in Metro Atlanta. The main focus of his expressive production is to create aesthetic altars to the transcendent consciousness of Africa and the African Diaspora past, present, and future. His art often makes references to African and world mythologies, Afro-futurism, cultural identity, colonial history, past and contemporary music forms, and comic book culture.
Kevin has lectured at venues such as Brandeis University, Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum, The High Museum of Art, University of Cape Town South Africa, various arts festivals and comic book conventions. As a featured poet, he has shared the stage with such luminaries as Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Saul Williams and the poets of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
Kevin Sipp currently works as the Project Supervisor for Gallery 72, a municipal art space for the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs. Gallery 72 is dedicated to presenting stimulating and thought-provoking contemporary art and programs that focus on advancing Atlanta’s art offerings. Gallery 72 seeks to promote cutting-edge contemporary art, while extending opportunities for artists and art organizations to explore creative expression and compelling idea.
Eric Bomba-Ire is a filmmaker/writer, and co-founder of cinemATL.com an online platform for southeastern filmmakers. Originally from Ghana, Eric has resided in Atlanta for the past 22 years.
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Hush No More!: A Documentary
2020-09-20 15:00 - 17:00
The Baton Foundation, Inc., in collaboration with Hush No More! and Comfort in The Storm, will host a film screening about domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse, and trauma in the Black community. This program is free, but registration is required.
The Problem
Studies show that every 98 seconds someone is sexually assaulted. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men experience sexually harassment in the workplace. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of sexual violence by an intimate partner. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are victims of child sexual abuse and 3 out of 4 of those children were abused by someone they know. On average, the National Trafficking Hotline receives approximately 150 calls per day.
These statistics clearly show what many of us know–there is a silent epidemic in our community that leaves our family and friends at risk of being a victim of the “hush” topics.
About the Film
HUSH NO More!: A Documentary (90 mins.) is a critically acclaimed film that explores the negative impacts of “hush” topics–domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse and sex trafficking. Filmmakers interviewed eight survivors and two experts to explore how individuals can survive trauma and prevent it from happening to others in our communities. Additionally, the documentary examines the coping skills used to go from victim to survivor.
About HUSH No More!
HUSH No More! is a non-profit organization founded in 2019 to provide a platform for survivors to share their experience with “hush” topics–those topics that individuals, families, and organizations have a hard time discussing (i.e. sexual assault, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, sexual harassment, among others). The organization receives support from survivors and victim advocates and provides training that fosters awareness and prevention in the Black community. Our vision is to help create a world in which survivors feel empowered to be HUSH No More. We believe that by having survivors share their stories with others a knowledge base is created which leads to safer communities. Dr. Vanessa Guyton is the organization’s founder and executive director.
About Comfort in the Storm
Comfort In The Storm is an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to helping end the epidemic of child sexual abuse. As credentialed advocates, the organization provides child sex abuse prevention and awareness training to groups and organizations of all sizes. Staff also provide peer support to survivors of child sexual abuse and their families. Kathy and Richard Butler founded the organization.
Register for Zoom Screening and Discussion Here

Hush No More!: Domestic Violence, Sexual Abuse and Trauma in the Black Community
2020-09-13 15:00 - 17:30
The Baton Foundation, Inc., in collaboration with Hush No More! and Comfort in The Storm, will host a film screening and community conversation about domestic violence, sexual assault and abuse, and trauma in the Black community. This program is free, but registration is required.
The Problem
Studies show that every 98 seconds someone is sexually assaulted. 1 in 3 women and 1 in 10 men experience sexually harassment in the workplace. 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have been victims of sexual violence by an intimate partner. 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are victims of child sexual abuse and 3 out of 4 of those children were abused by someone they know. On average, the National Trafficking Hotline receives approximately 150 calls per day.
These statistics clearly show what many of us know–there is a silent epidemic in our community that leaves our family and friends at risk of being a victim of the “hush” topics.
About the Program
Using the documentary, HUSH No More!, as a catalyst, facilitators will engage the audience in a community discussion that begins to address topics often too difficult to broach. This program will provide advocacy services and resources for those who might be in need, personally, or for a friend or loved one. Facilitators will also provide tips to prevent sexual assault and ways you can support a survivor.
About the Film
HUSH NO More!: A Documentary (90 mins.) is a critically acclaimed film that explores the negative impacts of “hush” topics–domestic violence, sexual assault, sexual harassment, child sexual abuse and sex trafficking. Filmmakers interviewed eight survivors and two experts to explore how individuals can survive trauma and prevent it from happening to others in our communities. Additionally, the documentary examines the coping skills used to go from victim to survivor.
About HUSH No More!
HUSH No More! is a non-profit organization founded in 2019 to provide a platform for survivors to share their experience with “hush” topics–those topics that individuals, families, and organizations have a hard time discussing (i.e. sexual assault, domestic violence, child sexual abuse, sex trafficking, sexual harassment, among others). The organization receives support from survivors and victim advocates and provides training that fosters awareness and prevention in the Black community. Our vision is to help create a world in which survivors feel empowered to be HUSH No More. We believe that by having survivors share their stories with others a knowledge base is created which leads to safer communities. Dr. Vanessa Guyton is the organization’s founder and executive director.
About Comfort in the Storm
Comfort In The Storm is an Atlanta-based organization dedicated to helping end the epidemic of child sexual abuse. As credentialed advocates, the organization provides child sex abuse prevention and awareness training to groups and organizations of all sizes. Staff also provide peer support to survivors of child sexual abuse and their families. Kathy and Richard Butler founded the organization.
Register for Zoom Screening and Discussion Here
