It was a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at the Old Whaling Church on Wednesday, integrated by age, race and Island geography. With whispers that a hundred more were waiting outside, they filled the hall, charged with the anticipation of hearing the charismatic new voice of the Democratic Party, United States Senatorial candidate from Illinois, Barack Obama, and listening as a panel of luminaries offered their views on Brown vs. Board of Education: Mission Accomplished?

In the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Va., this year’s Hutchins Forum delved into issues surrounding free speech, confederate monuments and what to make of a president who has failed to unequivocally denounce neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

The opinions were as varied as they were emphatic: There have been great opportunities lost in the area of civil rights. Poverty affects 43 per cent of all black children in the United States, the same proportion as it did the year Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Still, African-American people are better off than ever before, and a recent poll showed that most are, in fact, content.

Announcing the 2018-2019 Fellows

The Hutchins Center for African & African American Research Announces its Sixth Class of W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute Fellows

Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research, welcomes twenty-three Fellows for the 2018-2019 academic year.

“We are happy to welcome yet another class of scholars and artists engaged in timely and exciting work,” says...

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