Dr. Peniel E. Joseph

Peniel E. Joseph is an American scholar, teacher, and leading public voice on race issues. He holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at The University of Texas at Austin. He founded and directs the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD) on the University of Texas campus, housed at the LBJ School. The Center promotes engaged research and scholarship focused on the ways issues of race and democracy impact the lives of global citizens. He has published many award-winning books. The most recent, published in March, is The Sword and the Shield -- The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

This national moment of grief and mourning can become a marker of public shame or a symbol of American renewal

American cities are in upheaval, awakened by the duel pandemics of COVID-19 and white supremacy, which has resulted in 40 million people out of work and the spectacle of George Floyd’s death at the hands of the Minneapolis police.