Backtalker: An Evening with Kimberlé Crenshaw

A conversation inspired by her New York Times bestselling memoir.

Join us for a conversation with distinguished professor of law and pioneering civil rights scholar, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw.

One of the world's most influential public intellectuals, Crenshaw introduced critical race theory and coined the term intersectionality. In her New York Times bestselling memoir, Backtalker, Crenshaw shares the experiences that gave rise to the groundbreaking ideas that have transformed how we understand race, gender, power, and equality.

Backtalker is the powerful and intimate story of how a little girl from Canton, Ohio, came up with a new way to look at the world. Crenshaw’s memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn’t as the daughter of a strong-minded teacher and a pathbreaking public servant, and as the sister of a protective, yet bullying older brother. She starts to talk back, and that backtalking has continued throughout her life. It happens when she is denied a role in the kindergarten school play. When she is escorted to the back door of a private club. When Anita Hill is exiled for testifying against Clarence Thomas. When OJ Simpson goes on trial. When Obama launches My Brother’s Keeper, a movement focused on boys of colour only. When the movement against police violence overlooks Black women. Crenshaw is there for all of it. As a result of her work, Crenshaw has become a force to be reckoned with across America – at schools, in the workplace, at dinner tables, and, of course, in our public square.

Crenshaw will be joined by the Lincoln Alexander School of Law's Founding Dean, Donna E. Young, to explore the pivotal moments behind Backtalker, the evolution of Crenshaw's scholarship, and the enduring relevance of her work in confronting inequality and advancing justice.