Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture
The Eleanor Roosevelt Lecture Series was created in 2004 to honor Eleanor Roosevelt’s commitment to social justice and her important place in women’s history.
First Lady and United Nations Ambassador Eleanor Roosevelt served on Brandeis University's Board of Trustees from 1949 until her death in 1962 and was Visiting Lecturer of International Relations from 1959-62.
She gave the university's first commencement address in 1952, receiving an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters in 1954.
Upcoming and Past Lectures
Photo Credit: Duke University
April 14, 2026
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
2:30-4:00PM
Mandel Forum
Reception to follow.
The United States finds itself in regular cycles of racial reckoning and retrenchment—from Reconstruction to so-called Redemption and Jim Crow, from the enactment of landmark civil rights legislation to the execution of the Southern strategy, and from 2020s multiracial protests to the swift elimination of policies etching out a more inclusive society. In Black Evidence, Smith investigates the history of a habit that has diminished the quality of American democracy: muting the testimonies and insights of its Black citizens. This investigation pinpoints the technologies of resistance to Black evidence: excluding, gaslighting, terrorizing, medicalizing, and adultifying. Together, these tools turn Black witnesses into liars in the courtroom, Black patients into super bodies that don’t feel pain in healthcare settings, Black people into subhumans in scientific experiments, Black children into superpredators—and democracy into a prerogative state. Smith emphasizes the idea that none of this is inevitable and outlines some of the skills needed to build a truly multiracial democracy.
About Professor Candis Watts Smith
Candis Watts Smith is Professor of Political Science at Duke University. She is the author or co-author of dozens of articles and books, including Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter and Racial Stasis: The Millennial Generation and the Stagnation of Racial Attitudes in American Politics. Her research on the patchwork of unequal access to reproductive healthcare resources across the United States has been supported by the National Science Foundation. Smith is a co-host of the Democracy Works podcast, and her TEDx talk on myths about racism has been viewed over two million times.
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Department of African and African American Studies, the Department of Politics, and the Department of Sociology.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Patricia Hill Collins, Ph.D.
February 24, 2026
THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED UNTIL OCTOBER 2026.
A commitment to intellectual activism lies at the heart of Black women’s longstanding struggles for social justice. While the works of many Black women in developing Black feminist thought and intersectionality reflect this dedication, far too often, the impetus that animated their intellectual activism remains muted in how we remember, celebrate and memorialize their work. We celebrate their commitment to social justice work, but know far less about the processes of their journeys of intellectual activism. How did Black women, as individuals and as a collectivity, keep going, despite the obstacles?
In this presentation, Professor Patricia Hill Collins '69, Ph.D. '84 will explore how the idea of radical hope informs Black women’s intellectual activism in ways that generate a deep-seated commitment to working for social justice. To ground her analysis, she will place key ideas from Black feminist thought and intersectionality in dialogue with those of the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray. Dr. Murray was never satisfied with prevailing explanations of why social justice in the US remained so elusive for Black people generally and Black women in particular. But more importantly, she relentlessly cast a critical eye on her own ideas and actions, demonstrating a self-reflexivity that illuminates important dimensions of intellectual activism. Her work brings into sharper focus how moving toward social justice requires sustained commitment a life-long journey of critical thinking that tested her ideas in the crucible of political action.
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the Department of African and African American Studies, and the Department of Sociology.
March 27, 2025
A discussion with Professor mattie brice, Assistant Professor of Games for Transformational Racial Jusice at UC Santa Cruz.
Since the turn of the 21st century, games, game design, and gamification gained wide attention as tools for social change work, introducing new participatory aesthetic frameworks to the social design field. However, design and technology are facing a decolonial reckoning that challenges how computational and social technologies are used to perpetuate and reinforce power structures of western countries to the whole globe. Once we shift our focus to play and the marginalized folks engaging with it as a survival practice, new alternative realities become possible for art and design activism.
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and the Department of African and African American Studies.
October 18, 2022
Join Dr. Moya Bailey in discussion of "Misogynoir" with Brandeis students moderated by Professor V Chaudhry. Bailey is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. Her work focuses on Black women's use of digital media to promote social justice as acts of self-affirmation and health promotion. She is interested in how race, gender and sexuality are represented in media and medicine. She currently curates the #transformDH Tumblr initiative in Digital Humanities. She is a monthly sustainer of the Allied Media Conference through which she is able to bridge her passion for social justice and her work in digital humanities.
View the Conversation with Professor Bailey
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies
October 26, 2021
An hourlong talk and conversation with author Akwaeke Emezi. A National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree, Emezi was born in Umuahia and raised in Aba, Nigeria. They were named one of "The New Hollywood Guard: Writers" by Vanity Fair and their romance debut, "You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty" is forthcoming from Atria Books in 2022. Their debut poetry collection, "Content Warning: Everything" is also forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2022, and their sophomore YA novel "Bitter" will be published in February 2022 by Knopf Books.
Sponsored by the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies Program and the Creative Writing Program.
March 17, 2021
A panel event to launch "Black Privacy," the special issue of The Black Scholar, co-edited by Professors Samantha Pinto and Shoniqua Roach. Panelists include:
- Angela Davis '65
- Johnnetta Cole
- Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman
- Simone Brown
- Sarah Haley
- Emily A. Owens
- Samantha Pinto
- Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Sponsored by the Department of African and African-American Studies and the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies.
October 23, 2019
Judy Tzu-Chun Wu and Gwendolyn Mink
October 18, 2018
Maria Magdelena Campos-Pons
March 13, 2017
Chong-suk Han
October 28, 2015
College and Community Fellowship's Theater for Social Change
October 21, 2015
David Lisak