Panel Presentation: Future of Black Life in Austin

Location: Etter-Harbin Alumni Center, Legends Room, 2110 San Jacinto Blvd.
Time: Wednesday, May 1, 2013 from 6-8:30 p.m.

Join community leaders and City of Austin officials in a discussion on the Future of Black Life in Austin and issues faced by the African American community.  African Americans are the only major racial group in Austin experiencing a decline in population, as families are being displaced from their historic neighborhoods throughout the city, and options for healthy and sustainable living decrease for people of color become increasingly scarce.

Panelists:

• Dr. King Davis (moderator), director, Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis, The University of Texas at Austin
• Mr. Shannon Jones, III, deputy director, Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department
• Ms. Margo Frasier, police monitor, Austin Police Department
• Ms. Damaris Nicholson, Center for Disproportionality and Disparities, Texas Health and Human Services Commission
• Dr. Eric Tang, assistant professor, Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, The University of Texas at Austin

The Heman Sweatt Symposium on Civil Rights is an annual event organized by students, faculty and staff at The University of Texas at Austin. The symposium is named after Heman Marion Sweatt, the first African American admitted into the UT School of Law after the Supreme Court ruled in the landmark case of Sweatt v. Painter in 1950.

Heman M. Sweatt applied for admission to The University of Texas Law School in 1946, but was denied admission on the basis of race. Mr. Sweatt, with the help and assistance of the NAACP, brought legal action against the university. In the landmark case, Sweatt v. Painter, The United States Supreme Court ruled that separate law school facilities could not provide a legal education equal to that available at The University of Texas Law School, one of the nation’s ranking law schools.