A Reckoning with June Jordan

Live transcription is available here.

During this harrowing year, many have returned to June Jordan and her contemporaries in search of wisdom and provocations to guide us through the calamities of our time.

The title of this event comes from the title essay of June Jordan’s acclaimed collection, Some of Us Did Not Die (2002), which was adapted from the keynote lecture she delivered at the conference marking BCRW’s 30th anniversary in November 2001. As we mark BCRW’s 50th twenty years later, we find her words as prescient as ever.

Asha Futterman (BC ’21), Conor Tomas Reed, Talia Shalev, Evie Shockley, and Mecca Jamilah Sullivan joined us to read from her work and reckon with its enduring significance.

This reading and reckoning was part of the 46th annual Scholar and Feminist Conference: Art and Political Imagination, held in spring 2021.