Black Neighborhoods Matter

“Black Neighborhoods Matter” is a collaboration between the graduate level Right to Shelter housing seminar at Parsons and four national experts in grassroots community renewal. The experts span four generations and thus have differing lived experiences of race-based housing discrimination and inequality. They will engage the audience in considering how to claim space in historically African American neighborhoods by simultaneously reckoning with the past and moving toward a viable future. In an interactive discussion, panelists will elaborate the themes of history and memory, design justice, cultural heritage, and collective ownership that this cohort of design and policy students interrogated during the seminar with guidance from the experts. The audience will acquire tools for stemming the erasure of African American enclaves, for repairing their infrastructure without displacing existing residents, and for positioning the next generation of designers to become the guardians of their cultural wealth.

Panelists:
Olon Dotson, PhD, Interim Department Chair of the Department of Architecture and Professor of Architecture, Ball State University
Donald King, FAIA, President and CEO, Donald King Architecture
Vanessa Morrison, Associate Director, Institute for Quality Communities, University of Oklahoma Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture
Sharonda Whatley, District Planner, Cleveland City Planning Commission

Convener:
Sharon Egretta Sutton, FAIA, PhD, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Architecture, Parsons School of Design, The New School

This event is offered in person and virtually; proof of complete COVID-19 vaccination (for attendees ages 5 and up) with photo ID for adults is required to attend in person. Food and beverages will be served. Face masks are required for visitors ages 2-5, and optional for those vaccinated. Read our full Health and Safety Protocol here.

If you register for an online ticket, you will receive an email with a Zoom link to access the program.