The Social Justice Changemaker Lecture was established by a generous gift from Dr. Neil C. Hawkins and Annmarie F. Hawkins and the Hawkins Family. This annual lecture focuses on important global social justice issues including race and nationality, immigration and refugees, income inequality, gender identity and sexual orientation, education, health, and mental and physical disabilities.
The Social Justice Changemaker Lecture aims to bring prominent social justice experts and advocates from multiple disciplines including social sciences, science, humanities, the arts and other professions to the University of Michigan Campus.
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Registration Opens
9:30 AM
Lecture
10 - 11:30 AM
The Michigan Union
Rogel Ballroom
530 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Nikole Hannah-Jones is the Pulitzer Prize-winning creator of the 1619 Project and a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine. The book version of The 1619 Project and as well as the 1619 Project children's book, Born on the Water, were instant #1 New York Times bestsellers. Her 1619 Project is now a six-part docuseries on Hulu.
Hannah-Jones has spent her career investigating racial inequality and injustice, and her reporting has earned her the MacArthur Fellowship, known as the Genius grant, a Peabody Award, two George Polk Awards and the National Magazine Award three times.
She also serves as the Knight Chair of Race and Journalism at Howard University, where she founded the Center for Journalism & Democracy. Hannah-Jones is also the co-founder of the Ida B. Wells Society for Investigative Reporting, which seeks to increase the number of investigative reporters and editors of color, and in 2022 she opened the1619 Freedom School, a free, afterschool literacy program in her hometown of Waterloo, Iowa. Hannah-Jones holds a Master of Arts in Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned her BA in History and African-American studies from the University of Notre Dame.
Dr. Terri Friedline writes, organizes, and teaches about racial capitalism, technology and the financial system. She is an associate professor of social work at the University of Michigan and is the author of "Banking on a Revolution: Why Financial Technology Won't Save a Broken System" (Oxford University Press). Friedline's writing draws on critical theories and is inspired by abolitionist politics. Her recent writings focus on debt as racialized and gendered violence, credit scoring as a carceral practice and financial technology ("fintech") as invasive infrastructure. Her academic research has been published in top peer-reviewed journals, such as Social Service Review, Race and Social Problems, and Frontiers in Public Health, and her public writing has appeared in popular news magazines, such as Current Affairs, Ms., and The Intercept.
Friedline is active in policy. She has served as a member of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's Academic Research Council, has volunteered on the economic policy council of a presidential campaign, and has been endorsed by the Progressive Talent Pipeline. Friedline has presented her research before financial system regulators, provided written testimony to congressional committees, and served as an expert witness in discrimination lawsuits against banks.
Dr. Shanks' research interests include the impact of poverty and wealth on child well-being; asset-building policy and practice across the life cycle; and community and economic development. As Director of the Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being, she continues ongoing research and intentionally seeks and responds to new opportunities that will empower families and communities to thrive.
Since 2018, she has overseen the School's strategic goal of community engagement and leads the evolving ENGAGE team that promotes, coordinates and facilitates greater impact in community and social justice. Shanks also serves as faculty advisor to the New Leaders in African-Centered Social Work Program. She has also been a research investigator for the Saving for Education, Entrepreneurship, and Downpayment (SEED) demonstration program and consults with several other child savings account initiatives, including one started in Lansing Public Schools.
As a faculty affiliated with the Technical Assistance Center funded by the Skillman Foundation, over a ten-year period Trina Shanks was actively engaged in six Detroit communities as part of the Good Neighborhoods program. She also has conducted multiple evaluations of Detroit's Summer Youth Employment Program-Grow Detroit's Young Talent.
From 2010 to 2012 Shanks was appointed by Michigan Governor Granholm to serve two years on the State Commission on Community Action and Economic Opportunity. She is currently one of the national network co-leads for the Social Work Grand Challenge: Reversing Extreme Economic Inequality and a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute.
University of Michigan
School of Social Work
1080 South University Avenue
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106