On Monday, July 22, 2013, the Economic Policy Institute will hold a daylong symposium, “The Unfinished March,” to assess the unmet economic goals of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The Unfinished March symposium is part of an EPI project commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Reporters and civil rights luminaries are invited to a lunch at noon with guest speaker Ernest Green, former Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Carter and one of the “Little Rock Nine” who integrated Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. Members of the press are invited to attend the lunch (which is at the Jefferson Hotel) and should RSVP here.
The luncheon will be followed by a public symposium that will feature the nation’s leading experts on race, economics, and policy, including Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.). Symposium speakers will detail how critical achieving the unmet economic goals of the march are to the economic health and well-being of both communities of color and to all of America’s working families.
When: Monday, July 22, 4:30 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Where: AFL-CIO
815 16th Street, NW, Samuel Gompers Room
Washington, DC 20005
Symposium Panels:
The Forgotten History of the March for Jobs and Freedom
Moderator: Arlene Holt Baker, Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO
Panelists: Clarence Lang, author of Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Louis, 1936-75
Algernon Austin, Director of the Race, Ethnicity, and Economy Program, Economic Policy Institute
Addressing the Current Economic Crisis Facing People of Color
Moderator: Jacqueline Pata, Executive Director, National Congress of the American Indian
Panelists: William Spriggs, Chief Economist, AFL-CIO
Mark Hugo Lopez, Associate Director, Pew Hispanic Center
Lisa Hasegawa, Executive Director, National CAPACD
The Politics of Race in America: Are We Making Progress?
Moderator: Mark Levinson, Chief Economist, SEIU
Panelists: Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and CEO, PolicyLink
Roger A. Clay Jr., former President, Insight Center for Community Economic Development
Kica Matos, Director of Immigrant Rights & Racial Justice, Center for Community Change
Maya Rockeymoore, President and CEO, Global Policy Solutions
The Unfinished March symposium is free and is open to the public but we ask participants to RSVP.
This symposium launches the Unfinished March, a new EPI project that reviews America’s civil rights and economic justice successes as well as the significant amount of work left to be done. Throughout the next several months, a series of nine essays written by some of the nation’s leading experts will follow. Each essay will address a specific civil rights goal, the progress that has or has not been made, and, if necessary, the policy measures needed to fully realize the goal. Read the project’s first report, Unfinished March: An Overview, by Algernon Austin director of EPI’s Program on Race, Ethnicity, and the Economy, in which he provides a synopsis of the project and outlines the hard economic tasks that remain.