Founded on October 28, 2020, the Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice provides a scholarly space for professors, students, social justice workers, and activists to come together to research, discuss, debate, and explore answers to America’s most urgent questions on inequality, injustice, and racial inequity. We know that as a nation, we are stronger together. Still, decades of racial injustice, social inequity, and systemic acts of violence against marginalized communities have separated us. Throughout history, there have been moments of awakening where we have taken up these broader questions and attempted to settle them; but we have found that moments can only lead to movements when there is an infrastructure in place to support operationalizing the work.

As we take a moment to reflect on the work that we have done for the past three years at the Karson Institute for Race, Peace & Social Justice, I am reminded of the words of Francis of Assisi, who once wrote, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” The work that we are doing to create spaces to explore and examine America’s most pressing questions around racial equity and social justice is necessary and our work, over the past three years, to center the Institute as the place to have these conversations is an impossible dream rendered possible. We have spent the past academic year finding, creating, and maintaining more moments to be brave enough to act, to speak, and to stand up for freedom, justice, and racial equity. We understand that the transformative work we are doing is not easy, but it is necessary. It is possible, and it is (quite possibly) the rent that we pay for being on this planet (to paraphrase Shirley Chisholm).

As we celebrate our Fourth-Year Anniversary, we invite you to join us on campus at 5:30p for our Koffee and Convo Reception (McGuire East) and at 7:00p for our Symposium where we will present our inaugural Karson Nix Peace Award to Father Tim Brown (7:00p at the Black Box Theatre).

Save the Date 
Karson Institute Fourth-Year Anniversary 
Thursday, October 24, 2024

11:00a-12:30p
Karson Cookies and Cupcakes
Maryland Hall Circle (Quad)

5:30-7:00p
Koffee and Convo Reception
McGuire East

7:00-8:30
COMloquium
Our Sankofa Moment: Looking Back to Look Forward
Black Box Theatre