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37th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation with Mariame Kaba

February 12, 2021 @ 9:30 am

Please join us for the 37th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Convocation featuring activist and organizer Mariame Kaba in conversation with Gina Dent, associate professor of feminist studies. Mariame Kaba is an organizer, educator, curator, and prison industrial complex (PIC) abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. Kaba is the founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration. The annual convocation celebrates the life and dream of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by presenting speakers who discuss the civil rights issues of equality, freedom, justice, and opportunity. The convocation also seeks to build partnerships and develop dialogue within the campus community and with the local communities served by the university.

Register Here
  • Free and open to the public 
  • Date: 5:30 p.m., Friday, February 12, 2021
  • Location: Virtual
  • Questions? Please contact the Special Events Office at specialevents@ucsc.edu or (831) 459-5003.
Mariame Kaba

Mariame Kaba

Organizer, educator, curator, and prison industrial complex abolitionist who is active in movements for racial, gender, and transformative justice. The founder and director of Project NIA, a grassroots abolitionist organization with a vision to end youth incarceration, she is currently a researcher at Interrupting Criminalization: Research in Action at the Barnard Center for Research on Women, a project she cofounded with police misconduct attorney and organizer Andrea Ritchie in 2018. She has cofounded multiple other organizations and projects over the years including We Charge Genocide, the Chicago Freedom School, the Chicago Taskforce on Violence against Girls and Young Women, Love & Protect, the Just Practice Collaborative, and Survived & Punished. She is a member of the Movement for Black Lives Policy Table. Kaba’s leadership, organizing, and influence extend widely as she offers a radical analysis that influences how people think and respond to how violence, prisons, and policing affect the lives of people of color. Kaba is the author of Missing Daddy, and her forthcoming book, We Do This ‘Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice, will be published this month.