EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT

DATES and PLACES:

–5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 20, at the University of Michigan Gerald Ford School of Public Policy, Betty Ford classroom, 735 South State St., Ann Arbor.

–5-6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at U-M Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning Auditorium, 2000 Bonisteel Blvd., Ann Arbor.

–6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday Oct. 25, at Wright Museum of African American History, 315 East Warren Ave., Detroit.

EVENT: Mistinguette Smith of the Black/Land Project will spend October at the University of Michigan’s Center for the Education of Women (CEW). While in residence as the 2011 Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist, Smith will interview black women in Michigan?a leading state in dealing with post-industrial land issues?about their relationship to the land.

Smith will participate in two public events on the U-M Ann Arbor campus as well as one at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit. These events will feature a preview of Smith’s new documentary short, “Black/Land: Women’s Voices,” and a workshop that uses race and gender as lenses for understanding new connections between people, land, policy and place.

All events are free and open to the public; additional information and registration can be found at http://www.cew.umich.edu.

Smith describes the Black/Land Project as a complex nation-wide research and education initiative established “to identify and amplify conversations happening inside black communities about the relationship between black people, land, and place in order to share their powerful traditions of resourcefulness, resilience and regeneration.” The Black/Land Project interviews individuals and groups, and identifies key environmental, cultural, economic and social justice issues in their stories about land and place.

The Black/Land stories can serve as a framework for bringing together community representatives, land use planners, environmentalists, academics as well as business and government actors in order to resolve critical land use issues facing Americans today. Smith is a faculty member at the Center for Whole Communities in Vermont.

CONTACT: Beth Sullivan, (734) 764-6343.

SPONSORS: The Center for the Education of Women Visiting Social Activist Program was created by Twink Frey and her husband Jim McKay. Event co-sponsors include the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit; Detroit Public Library; Semester in Detroit Program, U-M; U-M Detroit Center; and the following University of Michigan-Ann Arbor units: Arts of Citizenship, Center for the Education of Women, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Department of Women’s Studies, Ford School of Public Policy, Ginsberg Center, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, School of Social Work, and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning.

WEB: For more information about the Visiting Social Activist Program at CEW, visit: http://www.cew.umich.edu/action/tfvsa.