2022 - University of Houston

As social workers, we are called to move ever TOWARD our highest ideals; justice, equity, and ultimately, liberation. The promise of liberation fuels our work; it is the dream of the day when oppression is no more. Though it may appear liberation is far away, or some may even think it unattainable, liberation is the fuel, the hope, and the promise, that guides our work each day.

This fall, we invite you to dream, hope, and imagine with us the liberation we strive toward. We are excited to present opportunities to engage in conversations TOWARD Liberation with Angela Davis, Derecka Purnell, Dorothy Roberts, and Mariame Kaba. We hope you will join us!


Join us Tuesday, November 1, 2022 as we welcome Derecka Purnell for a conversation with Kiese Laymon about Purnell's acclaimed memoir Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and The Pursuit of Freedom. Journey with us as we continue learning about the imaginative work of abolition essential to dismantling systems in pursuit of true freedom and liberation for all.	Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, researcher, and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research, and training in community based organizations through an abolitionist framework. Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University and 2022 MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ Fellow. He is the author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and Heavy: An American Memoir the widely acclaimed memoir which was also the selection for the 2019 GCSW Dean’s Summer Reading Series.
Join the upEND Movement on October 17-18, 2022 for the third annual convening of organizers, activists, scholars, and community leaders who are committed to dismantling the family policing system. This virtual gathering will explore the ideas set forth in Help is NOT on the Way: How Family Policing Perpetuates State Directed Terror.	Angela Davis Through her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as an educator—both at the university level and in the larger public sphere—has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.
Join the GCSW on September 22, 2022 for annual Speaking of Social Justice, Maconda Brown O'Connor Distinguished Lecture series featuring acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law, Dorothy Roberts.	Dorothy Roberts is an internationally acclaimed scholar, public intellectual, and social justice activist and author. In conversation with GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff, Roberts will discuss her newest book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World. Torn Apart culminates 25 years of investigating racism in family policing and calls for a radically reimagined way to support children and their families.

Join us Tuesday, November 1, 2022 as we welcome Derecka Purnell for a conversation with Kiese Laymon about Purnell's acclaimed memoir Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and The Pursuit of Freedom.

Journey with us as we continue learning about the imaginative work of abolition essential to dismantling systems in pursuit of true freedom and liberation for all.

Derecka Purnell is a human rights lawyer, researcher, and author of Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom. She works to end police and prison violence by providing legal assistance, research, and training in community based organizations through an abolitionist framework.

Kiese Laymon is a Black southern writer from Jackson, Mississippi. Laymon is the Libby Shearn Moody Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rice University and 2022 MacArthur ‘Genius Grant’ Fellow. He is the author of Long Division, How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and Heavy: An American Memoir the widely acclaimed memoir which was also the selection for the 2019 GCSW Dean’s Summer Reading Series.

Join the upEND Movement on October 17-18, 2022 for the third annual convening of organizers, activists, scholars, and community leaders who are committed to dismantling the family policing system.

This virtual gathering will explore the ideas set forth in Help is NOT on the Way: How Family Policing Perpetuates State Directed Terror.

Angela Davis
Through her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as an educator—both at the university level and in the larger public sphere—has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.

Join the GCSW on September 22, 2022 for annual Speaking of Social Justice, Maconda Brown O'Connor Distinguished Lecture series featuring acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law, Dorothy Roberts.

Dorothy Roberts
is an internationally acclaimed scholar, public intellectual, and social justice activist and author. In conversation with GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff, Roberts will discuss her newest book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World. Torn Apart culminates 25 years of investigating racism in family policing and calls for a radically reimagined way to support children and their families.

Graduate College of Social Work

TOWARD Liberation

About

The Mural