The Black Lives Matter uprising and COVID-19 have laid bare the structural racism and political, economic, and health crises that shape American social life.

This interdisciplinary roundtable series aims to explore the politics of race, class, gender, sexuality, and criminalization as historically played out in the Appalachian South, which has been left out of larger discussions about mass incarceration and the carceral state. By bringing together regional and UT scholars, activists, and students we aim to provide a fuller picture of how residents of the southern mountains find themselves ensnared in the criminal justice system and how criminalization further fragments the basic fabric of our Appalachian communities.

Guest speakers:

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson (Co-Executive Director, Highlander Research and Education Center) 

Judah Schept (Assistant Professor, Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University) 

Sylvia Ryerson (Artist, Journalist, PhD Student Yale University)

Funding by Haines Morris Endowment 

Sponsored by the Africana Studies Program, Center for the Study of Social Justice, Critical Race Collective, Department of History, Department of Sociology, Intersectional Community of Scholars, and the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Program.