Monday, January 18, 2021, 1:00 - 2:30 PM

Monday, January 18, 2021, 1:00 - 2:30 PM 1:00-1:45 The Right to Dream by Living Voices with Q&A
and Community Conversation with Dr. Kenya Davis-Hayes
The Right to Dream is a virtual theatrical performance told from the point of view of a young African American from a small Mississippi town in the 1950’s. Early on, he feels and sees the daily impact of racism and becomes inspired by the impact of civil disobedience and leaders like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. He joins SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) to advocate for voter registration, and participates in the March on Washington, Freedom Summer and the March from Selma to Montgomery. We watch as civil rights activists win the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act—and challenge us to advance the cause of justice for all. Dr. Davis-Hayes will frame the conversation for us to connect then and now and invite questions and reflections.

1:45 - 2:30 PM: Extension Conversation for California Educators only
Stay with us after the performance and community conversation for a deeper discussion led by Dr. Davis-Hayes. This session is designed as an opportunity to process and make sense of current events with educator peers. We can gain understanding of today in the context of U.S. history and its examples of both struggles and progress. Gain strategies from Dr. Davis-Hayes on ways you can do this in your school. She will lead us in grappling with the difficult questions on the complexity and fragility of our democracy, then

Dr. Kenya Davis-Hayes is a professor of US History at California Baptist University, where she teaches U.S. History from the colonial period through the Cold War. Her research explores the imaging of race and its impact on popular culture, and she has lectured about the politics of American popular culture at universities worldwide including the National University of Rwanda, the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and UNAM in Mexico City. She served as a gubernatorial appointee to California Humanities, the state branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities and regularly publishes in academic journals, as well as, educational companion pieces for two local PBS broadcasts—Lost LA and ArtBound.  In 2019, Professor Davis-Hayes served as a Gilder Lehrman Institute lead scholar training public school teachers in in-depth content knowledge regarding the women's suffrage movement, antebellum civil rights efforts and the relevance of Alexander Hamilton in modern society.  She is currently writing a book about the history of black women on television during the Civil Rights era.