Excerpted from a letter from Dean Curzan:
"[Friday, 6/19] is Juneteenth, and I want to echo Rob Sellers’ invitation to our entire community to commemorate the holiday in some fashion. The celebration of Juneteenth has a long history in the Black community. In addition to commemorating the end of slavery in America, it honors the strength, perseverance, and legacy of the generations of enslaved African American ancestors who played a central role in building this country and survived the cruelties of slavery. Juneteenth Celebration Day is now officially recognized in Michigan, as well as 46 other states and D.C., and yesterday Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist II underscored that the day “is an important reminder of the work that must continue to be done to deliver equity and opportunity to every community.”

"I would like to invite you to join us, as part of our college-wide anti-racism efforts, in an extended exploration of Bryan Stevenson’s transformational work challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system and catalyzing conversations about the legacy of slavery in the United States. We will soon be sharing details about events this summer and fall. If you want to get started now, I encourage you to watch Bryan Stevenson’s TED Talk (“We Need to Talk About an Injustice”|
https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice?language=en) or the movie, Just Mercy (available for free on many digital platforms right now|https://www.justmercyfilm.com/), which is based on Stevenson’s representation of Walter McMillian, who was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit."