Project News

Ahwatukee Professor Neal Lester’s Project Humanities at Arizona State University will host its sixth annual Hacks for Humanity hackathon Oct. 19-20. Hacks for Humanity is a 36-hour creativity and innovation event for people of all ages and professions who create technologies that address local and global issues. The finished products must embody these seven principles that Project Humanities identifies as Humanity 101: kindness, compassion, integrity, respect, empathy, forgiveness, and self-reflection. 

Food is not only a staple of life, but a staple of one’s own identity; that’s the idea behind an Arizona State University engagement program designed to examine and discuss how foods define us.

Serving abroad for the Peace Corps. Pledging money to sponsor clean drinking water in developing countries. Working an election booth to ensure fairness. All of these are prime examples of showing humanity. Unfortunately, there is no shared language to define human rights.

First Institutional Baptist Church in partnership with various community organizations will host Arizona’s Commemoration of the 400th Anniversary of Enslaved Africans Brought to North America at a Festival Event on Tuesday, August 20, 2019. This event will bring together Africans, African- Americans and others from across the state to remember, reflect, respond and recover from the inhumane systemic racism that spanned from Africa to North America, while bridging the African Diaspora, moving into the next century with determination and deliverance.

Having a seat at the table takes on a whole new meaning for me when I was sitting next to author Toni Morrison. Thanks to poet friend Nikki Giovanni – a literary giant in her own right – I was invited to attend a celebration of Morrison soon after the untimely death of Morrison’s son.

With a literary oeuvre that includes 11 novels, several children’s books, plays, and even an opera, Toni Morrison long has been revered as one of the most accomplished and impactful writers in American literature. The Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author died this week on Aug. 5, 2019, at the age of 88.

Neal Lester’s office at ASU, where he teaches English and heads an initiative called Project Humanities, is filled with a mix of paperwork, books, and objects that reflect his interest in how black people have been represented in American culture.

A Phoenix mother says her 9-year-old son was forced to walk through his class as his teacher and fellow students yelled at, humiliated and berated him during a lesson on school segregation. 

Dr. Neal A. Lester. is a Foundation Professor of English and the Founding Director of Project Humanities at Arizona State University. A popular public speaker, frequent radio guest, regular op-ed contributor, newspaper columnist and blogger, and discussion facilitator, Dr. Lester has an extensive record of lectures and keynote addresses, local and national media interviews, guest speaker events, scholarly consultations, conference presentations, and editorials.

The N-word has played a big part in American history, whether that is due to political and social history or in pop culture.Even if the N-word surrounds us in music and movies and our favorite artists use it, that does not give non-Black individuals the right to say it.