The College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences is co-sponsoring a conversation titled “How Does the Inland Empire Strike Back Against Hate?” The FREE in person and online program is set for Tuesday, July 16, 6:30-8:30 p.m. at UCR ARTS, 3824 Main St. in downtown Riverside.  

The conversation will be moderated by Professor Emeritus of Cal State San Bernardino’s School of Criminal Justice Brian Levin. Panelists are: California State Assemblymember Corey A. Jackson, Project Director of Mapping Black California Candice Mays, and Senior Policy Advocate and Organizer for ACLU’s Southern California Inland Empire Office Luis Nolasco. They will discuss the region’s history of discrimination and violence and examine current efforts that bring justice to the Inland Empire.

The event is led by Zócalo Public Square and California Humanities. RSVPs are encouraged: zps.la/chass.

In the 1920s, Southern California’s Inland Empire was a bucolic place, dotted with small towns set amid orange groves. It was also a growing outpost for the Ku Klux Klan, whose members subjected the region’s minority residents to exclusion, harassment, and violence in following decades. Today, antisemitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Black, anti-Latino, anti-Asian, and anti-LGBTQ movements persist, with hate crimes again on the rise alongside a new generation of domestic extremist groups.

“In a civil, democratic society, we have to build spaces that actively support strategies to diffuse the underlying elements that give rise to violence and hate crimes,” says Moira Shourie, executive director of Zócalo Public Square. “Our goal with this program is to examine the past, present, and bright future of the Inland Empire’s fight against injustice that local policymakers and advocates in the region are spearheading.”

Following the event, Zócalo invites the in-person audience to continue the conversation at a post-event reception featuring complimentary drinks and small bites.