CMEI Colloquium
Larsen Hall, Harvard Graduate School of Education
October 5, 2010
Professor Mark Warren discussed his new book, Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice. In this book, Mark shows how white Americans can develop a commitment to racial justice, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because they embrace the cause as their own. Based on in-depth interviews with 50 white activists from across the country, Mark brings to light the perspectives of white people who are working day-to-day to build not a post-racial America but the foundations for a truly multiracial America rooted in a caring, human community with equity and justice at its core.
Speaker Biography: Mark R. Warren is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He studies efforts to strengthen institutions that anchor low-income communities— schools, congregations and other community-based organizations—and to build broad-based alliances among these institutions and across race and social class. He is interested in the development of educational and community leadership through involvement in multiracial political action as well as the outcomes of such efforts in fostering community development, social justice, and school transformation. He is committed to using the results of scholarly research to promote equity in public policy and to advance democratic practice.
In 2015, Warren earned two prestigious fellowships that support his research on building an educational justice movement and organizing against the school-to-prison pipeline. With the College Board Fellowship to Advance Educational Excellence for Young Men of Color, he will spend the 2015-16 academic year in residence at the W. E. B. Du Bois Research Institute, a premiere global center for African-American and African research at Harvard University. Recognizing past accomplishments and future promise, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship will also support this research which Warren expects to turn into his next book.