David Stovall lecture: “Engineered Conflict: School Closings, Public Housing, Law Enforcement and the Future of Black Life”

The presentation “Engineered Conflict:  School Closings, Public Housing, Law Enforcement and the Future of Black Life” interrogates white supremacy/racism in the form of state-sanctioned structural violence in Chicago. Through the creation of obstruction and failure at the government/administrative level, the city’s recent and historical maneuvers in education, housing and law enforcement operate as material and ideological sites for continued containment and marginalization of large groupings of African-American (Black) residents on the South and West sides of the city.  By entering a conversation on structural violence, the presentation seeks to reframe the current moment in Chicago neighborhoods that are experiencing and resisting fracture, dispossession, marginalization and isolation.

David Stovall, Ph.D. is Professor of African-American Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  His scholarship investigates three areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) the relationship between housing and education, and 3) the intersection of race, place and school. In the attempt to bring theory to action, he works with community organizations and schools to develop curriculum that address issues of equity and justice.  His work led him to become a member of the design team for the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice (SOJO), which opened in the Fall of 2005. Furthering his work with communities, students, and teachers, his work manifests itself in his involvement with the Peoples Education Movement, a collection of classroom teachers, community members, students and university professors in Chicago, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area who engage in collaborative community projects centered in creating relevant curriculum.  In addition to his duties and responsibilities as a professor at UIC, he also served as a volunteer social studies teacher at the Greater Lawndale/Little Village School for Social Justice from 2005-2018.