<head><style>body{font-size:10pt;font-family:arial,sans-serif;background-color:#ffffff;color:black;}p{margin:0px;}</style></head><body><font color="#000000"><font size="2"><font face="arial,sans-serif"><br></font></font></font>Cambridge Forum<br> 3 Church Street ● Cambridge, MA 02138<br>617-495-2727<br>email: director@cambridgeforum.org<br>cambridgeforum.org<br><br>Release March 8, 2011<br> <br><br><br>FIRE IN THE HEART: White Activists Embrace Racial Justice<br><br>On Wednesday, March 16, 2011 at 7 p.m. Cambridge Forum hosts Mark Warren, Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, discussing his book Fire in the Heart: How White Activists Embrace Racial Justice.<br><br>Fire in the Heart uncovers the dynamic processes through which some white Americans become activists for racial justice. Drawing on in-depth interviews with fifty white activists in the fields of community organizing, education, and criminal justice reform, Mark Warren shows how white Americans can develop a commitment to racial justice, not just because it is the right thing to do, but because they embrace the cause as their own. Contrary to much contemporary thinking on racial issues focused on altruism or interests, Warren finds that cognitive and rational processes alone do little to move whites to action. Rather, the motivation to take and sustain action for racial justice is profoundly moral and relational. Warren shows how white activists come to find common cause with people of color when their core values are engaged, as they build relationships with people of color that lead to caring, and when they develop a vision of a racially just future that they understand to benefit everyone--themselves, other whites, and people of color. What are the difficulties that white activists face on their path to embracing racial justice? How have these challenges evolved over the past half century?<br><br>Mark Warren is a sociologist concerned with the revitalization of American democratic and community life. He has published widely on community organizing and leadership development based on alliances built across race and class and on outcomes of such efforts to foster community development, social justice and school transformation. Committed to employing the results of scholarly research to advance democratic practice, he is currently co-directing a national study on community organization efforts and school reform.<br><br>Cambridge Forum is recorded and edited for public radio broadcast. Edited CDs are available to the public by contacting 617-495-2727. Select forums can be viewed in their entirety on demand by visiting our website at cambridgeforum.org and clicking on the Forum Network at WGBH.</body><pre>
Cambridge Forum
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Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-2727
email: mailto:director@cambridgeforum.org
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