Urban League hosting second annual INTERRUPT RACISM Summit Sept. 14-15

On September 14 and 15, 2021, the Urban League of Rochester will host its second annual Virtual INTERRUPT RACISM Summit, presented by JPMorgan Chase & Co and ESL Federal Credit Union. The INTERRUPT RACISM Summit is an online, immersive learning experience for youth and adults, uniquely designed for attendees to participate and come together to identify, interrupt, and dismantle processes of systemic racism. Tickets are on sale now.

This year’s event features seven keynotes from national thought leaders on issues relating to this year’s Summit theme “Health, Wealth, and Safety for BIPOC.” On Tuesday, September 14, Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, will open the event, followed by keynotes from Grammy-winning singer/songwriter Michelle Williams (of Destiny’s Child fame) and from Dr. Randal D. Pinkett, a leading entrepreneur, winner of The Apprentice, and the first African American Rhodes Scholar.

Williams will speak directly with Dr. Seanelle Hawkins, President and CEO of the Urban League of Rochester, in a fireside chat about her new memoir Checking In: How Getting Real about Depression Saved My Life—and Can Save Yours and her work advocating for mental health for people of color. 

“I am beyond excited for this year’s Summit,” Hawkins said, “We are building on our success from last year, helping participants move beyond solidarity statements and bringing challenging conversations and solutions to achieve racial equity and justice into the homes  and offices of hundreds across the state and the country.”

On Wednesday, September 15, Harriet A. Washington will open the morning with a bracing, insightful conversation about how systemic racism shows up throughout the history and present of the U.S. medical system. Her seminal 2007 work Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present, sent shockwaves through the country, and she builds on this work on medical ethics and racial justice with this year’s Carte Blanche: The Erosion of Informed Consent in Medical Research. 

Also appearing on Wednesday is Manjusha P. Kulkarni, a much-lauded expert on anti-Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) sentiment, who will speak on the advocacy her organization Stop AAPI Hate has done in light of rising hate crimes against AAPI individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following Kulkarni will be Courtney Ahn, a multidisciplinary designer and art activist who rose to Instagram fame in recent months through her weekly, approachable yet piercing antiracism illustrations.

“As the nation has spent the last year and a half focused on racial justice in a manner not seen since the race riots of the 50s and 60s, we are going deeper and providing our attendees even more powerful presentations and workshops,” Hawkins explained. “We know that folks are all at different stages of their antiracism journey—what we call the interruption—but we’re moving beyond the ‘racism 101’ content into the real, solutions-based work. That’s the challenge of this year’s INTERRUPT RACISM Summit.”

Hawkins herself will appear in the seventh keynote of the Summit in a panel of all six New York State Urban League CEOs. They will discuss how their individual Urban League affiliates continue to respond to the double pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism in their respective communities. The Buffalo Urban League, whose CEO Thomas Beauford, Jr., is on this panel, is partnering with the Urban League of Rochester in the planning and marketing of this event to the entire nine-county Western New York area.

Rounding out this year’s Summit schedule will be sessions from more than 20 individual presenters on a plethora of topics tied to the theme of “Health, Wealth, and Safety.” 

Setting this event apart from other similar conferences is cutting-edge technology from Bevy that allows the Summit to as closely approximate an in-person conference as possible. This includes features like being able to change sessions at will, connect one-on-one with presenters, sit down with other attendees at networking tables, and more—all within a single login to the Summit platform website.

A limited number of student scholarships are available through the generosity of donors to the Urban League of Rochester. Companies wishing to send groups of staff to attend the Summit may have access to special group pricing. Interested persons may contact wrivera@ulr.org for details.

Additional details on the 2021 Virtual INTERRUPT RACISM Summit may be found on the Summit website.