Claudia Jones School: First anniversary celebration
- This event has passed.
February 19, 2021 @ 5:00 pm - 7:00 pm
You are invited to the Claudia Jones School: First Anniversary Celebration, featuring cultural performances and a presentation by Elise Bryant of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW). This event will be held virtually via Zoom.
Date: Friday, February 19
Time: 5 pm Eastern Time, 4 pm Central, 2 pm Pacific
RSVP here.
This event will feature:
Elise Bryant served for over 18 years as Michigan’s trade union community both as an educator and cultural worker. A lifetime member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Elise organized Michigan’s first Latino Workers Leadership Institute and coordinated the Michigan Summer School for Women Workers as well as the Black Men in Unions Institute. She joined the National Writers Union and began her screenwriting career with a script for the documentary, Porgy and Bess: an American Voice which aired last year on PBS. After working for 35 years as a labor educator, Elise retired from her professorship at the National Labor College to start her own consulting service, the E.L.I.S.E. Consortium. She also founded the D.C. Labor Chorus, is the current executive director of the Labor Heritage Foundation and in 2017, became the President of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW).
As the Jubilee Singers formed to support Fisk University, and the Freedom Singers formed to support the work of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, the Black Workers Chorus formed to support the work of the ONE DC Black Workers Center in Washington, DC. They began in 2017 with the campaign to buy the historic United Black Fund building in Anacostia. Led by section leaders Veronica Proctor, Luci Murphy, Al McCray and Eric Sheptock; the chorus gets the crowd going to stop police abuse, end the death penalty, defend workers rights and housing rights.
Francisco Campbell is an experienced diplomat and academic who currently serves as the ambassador from Nicaragua to the United States. Campbell previously served as Nicaragua’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe from 1986 to 1990 and concurrently held the position for Tanzania, Angola, and Zambia, as well as Representative to the African National Congress and to the Southwest African People’s Organization, which these organizations led efforts to overturn the apartheid regime in South Africa and liberate Southwest Africa (now Namibia).