Souls of Du Bois Symposium 2026
“Knowledge, Freedom & Healing in Changing Times”
February 26–27, 2026 | University of Pennsylvania
About the Symposium
Now in its 33rd year, the Souls of Du Bois Symposium celebrates the enduring legacy of scholar and activist Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois through critical dialogue, research, and community engagement.
Each year, the symposium convenes students, faculty, alumni, and community members to explore themes of race, justice, liberation, and the transformative power of knowledge. The 2026 theme, “Knowledge, Freedom & Healing in Changing Times,” invites participants to reflect on how education, activism, and collective healing shape a just and equitable society.
Co-sponsored by Campus Philly & Campus 250
Symposium Dates and Locations
Thursday, February 26, 2026
📍 Reception & Keynote | 6:00–8:30 PM | W.E.B. Du Bois College House – 3900 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA 19104
Friday, February 27, 2026
📍 Full-Day Sessions | 9:00 AM–3:30 PM | Gutmann College House, 211 S. 40th Street, Philadelphia PA 19104
Featuring keynote addresses, faculty-led panels, and student research roundtables moderated by W.E.B. Du Bois Faculty Fellows.
Registration is required for participation.
Thursday, February 26th 2026
Ciudad Negra: Philadelphia, Urban Inequality, Education Access and Opportunity
Philadelphia is a Black city.
It is a ciudad shaped by Puerto Rican diaspora and global Black migrations.
It is a city of refuge and displacement.
It is a city marked by structural neglect and the opioid crisis.
It is a city of resistance.
It is a city of deep history.
It is the corazón of our democracy—and its contradicciones.
This panel brings together local educators and Afro-Latin American scholars to examine how race, place, democratic ideals, and structural inequities shape educational opportunity in urban contexts. Grounded in Philadelphia’s educational and community conditions and extended through Afro-Latin and global Black historical and geographic perspectives, the conversation explores how educational pathways are conditioned by broader urban structures, which include land, displacement, racialized belonging, housing, immigrant rights and uneven institutional access. Drawing on professional experience, historical analysis, and transnational scholarship, panelists reflect on what educators observe, what history reveals, and what is still needed to build more just, place-conscious educational futures for Black and Brown youth.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Evelyne Laurent-Perrault is a doctor in History of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean (NYU) and “Licenciada” in Biology (UCV, Caracas-Venezuela). She is a retired Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of California Santa Barbara. Author of several essays, including “Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, the Quintessential Maroon: Towards an African-Diasporic Epistemology,” “Brígida Natera y las Leyes de Vientre libre,” “Esclavizadas litigantes, ideas y praxis de una modernidad silenciada,” “Esclavizadas, cimarronaje y la ley en Venezuela, 1760-1809.” Dr. Laurent-Perrault is editing her manuscript titled “Claiming Dignity, Black Women’s Political Intervention in Colonial Venezuela.” Dr. Laurent-Perrault is developing a Curriculum on Haiti. She was the Education Coordinator for the UPenn website “Dispossession in the Americas: extraction of bodies, lands, and cultural heritages from the conquest to the present.” She was a contributor to the first AP African American Studies course (2022) and a member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the “National Museum of the American Latino Museum (NMAL) - Smithsonian Institution (currently inactive).
Panelist
Dr. Keisha-Khan Y. Perry is the Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on race, gender and politics in the Americas, urban geography and questions of citizenship, Black women’s intellectual histories, and the interrelationship between scholarship, pedagogy and political engagement. Her first book, Black Women against the Land Grab: The Fight for Racial Justice in Brazil, won the 2014 National Women’s Studies Association Gloria Anzaldúa Book Prize and an updated and revised Portuguese translation was just published in September 2022 by the Federal University of Bahia Press. The book includes an analysis of the relationship between environmental justice movements and land and housing rights struggles in Brazil. She published the edited volume Black Women in Latin America and the Caribbean: Critical Perspectives and Research with Melanie Medeiros (Rutgers University Press, 2023). She is currently working on two book projects: Evictions and Convictions: The Right to Home and life in the Americas, a comparative analysis of grassroots movements for the right to housing and life in Jamaica, the United States, and Brazil, and The Fire Inside: The Social Justice Imperative at the Heart of African Diaspora Studies that illustrates the challenges of activist research amidst racial and gender violence.
Panelist
Dr. Joann Gonzalez-Generals serves as the Director of the Upward Bound Program at the University of Pennsylvania, where she oversees the strategic planning, implementation and evaluation of the federally funded college preparatory program designed to expand access to postsecondary education. In this capacity, she has successfully secured and administered more than $5M in grants and established University and external partnerships to advance college access and success in higher education for historically underrepresented students.
Prior to joining the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Gonzalez-Generals served as the Executive Director for Student Success at Caldwell University. Earlier in her career at Passaic County Community College, she held progressive leadership roles, including Assistant Director of the Wanaque Academic Center, Director of the TRIO Student Support Services Program, and Executive Director of the Center for Student Success, where she was responsible for the Freshman Seminar course and student retention initiatives.
Dr. Gonzalez-Generals earned a B.A. in Psychology from Rutgers University, an M.A. in Urban Education from New Jersey City University, and an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership, Administration, and Policy from Fordham University.
Her professional engagement extends to non-profit governance. She is Secretary of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Board Development Committee for the Girls Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania and serves on the Board of Directors for Live Work Philadelphia.
Dr. Gonzalez-Generals lives in Philadelphia with her husband and son. When she is not working, you can find her jogging along the Delaware River waterfront or planning her next international travel adventure.
Panelist
Dr. Guy Generals is a transformative leader whose distinguished career in higher education spans four decades. As the former President of Community College of Philadelphia, his values are defined by a steadfast commitment to equity, innovation, and opportunity. His accomplishments include the Commonwealth’s only middle college program; the Catto Scholarship fund; record breaking enrollment, retention and graduation and the expansion of workforce development with the construction of the 70,000 square foot state-of-the-art advanced technology center. Over 11 years, the College increased tuition just once, demonstrating his commitment to access and opportunity.
An influential voice in national education leadership, Dr. Generals has served on the executive committees of the American Association of Community Colleges, the National Alliance of Community and Technical Colleges, and the Global Community College Leadership Network. He has been a lead accreditation evaluator for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and a respected speaker on topics ranging from guided pathways; diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging (DEI&B); workforce development; and social justice. His thought leadership extends to numerous publications, including his 2013 book Booker T. Washington: The Architect of Progressive Education.
Dr. Generals has contributed to several journals and publications throughout his career, including Urban Voices, Racial Justice and Community Leadership (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022); Guided Pathways: A Catalyst for Change (Community College Research Center, Teachers College, 2019); Booker T. Washington and Progressive Education: An Experimentalist Approach to Curriculum Development and Reform (Journal of Negro Education, Howard University, 2001); and, The Architect of Progressive Education: John Dewey or Booker T. Washington. Journal of Intercultural Disciplines (St. Lawrence University, Canton NY, 2002)
Dr. Generals’ influence has been recognized through numerous honors, including Philadelphia Magazine’s 150 Most Influential Philadelphians (2022, 2023, and 2024), the Urban Affairs Coalition’s Community Leadership Award (2024); the Global Philadelphia Globy Award for Educational Leadership (2022); and the National Pacesetter of the Year Award, (2021).
Dr. Generals received his BA and MA from William Paterson University and his Ed.D. from Rutgers University. He has certificates in higher education leadership from Harvard and Cornell Universities.
Dr. Amalia Z. Daché
Associate Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Director of W.E.B. Du Bois College House
Moderator
Dr. Amalia Daché is an Afro-Cuban American scholar and associate professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her experiences as a 1980s Mariel boatlift refugee and student navigating U.S. inner-city schools, community college, state college, and a private research-intensive university contribute to her lines of inquiry. Dr. Daché’s major research areas are postcolonial geographic contexts of higher education, Afro-Latina/o/x studies, community and student resistance, and the college-access experiences of African diasporic students and communities.
She is lead editor of Rise Up! Activism as Education, published in 2019 by Michigan State University Press. Her most recent article, “Bus-Riding from Barrio to College: A Qualitative Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Analysis,” appeared in The Journal of Higher Education in 2021. Dr. Daché engages in research within contested urban geographies, including Havana, Cuba; Cape Town, South Africa; and Ferguson, Missouri. She has won numerous awards and fellowships from the National Academy of Education, Spencer Foundation, Association for the Study of Higher Education, and The Rockefeller Institute.
Dr. Dache has appeared as an expert in film and national media outlets, including Spike Lee’s documentary Two Fists Up, Red Table Talk: The Estefans, MSNBC’s The ReidOut with Joy Reid, American Voices with Alicia Menendez, José Díaz-Balart Reports, Slate’s A Word with Jason Johnson podcast, NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, #SOSCuba podcast with Enrique Santos, Black News Tonight with Marc Lamont Hill, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Politico, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Al Día.
Friday, February 27th 2026
Unbroken Lines Across Oceans and Generations: Mapping Africa–Diaspora Legacies Through Landscape, Text, and Sound
This interdisciplinary panel brings together scholars representing three branches of the global African diaspora—African American, Grenadian, and South African—to explore the enduring connections between Africa and its diasporic communities. Organized in the spirit of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois’s Pan-Africanist vision and legacy, the panel examines how memory, creativity, and resistance travel across oceans and generations, shaping cultural expression and identity worldwide.
The first presentation, by an African American scholar, investigates the histories of people of color in Appalachia and rural U.S. communities. Drawing on experiences from the Fulbright-Hays Seminar Abroad on sustainable development and environmental (in)justice in South Africa, the speaker highlights how the myth of “white space” obscures Black presence while enabling extractive industries. Focusing on Tablertown, Ohio, the presentation examines patterns of environmental degradation and historical erasure, alongside community-led resistance that mirrors struggles observed in South Africa.
The second presentation, delivered by a Grenadian scholar, highlights literature as a site of diasporic continuity and creative exchange. The speaker traces how African narrative forms, worldviews, and aesthetic traditions have shaped literary expression across the Caribbean, the Americas, and beyond, emphasizing the ongoing dialogue that binds African-descended communities across generations.
The final presentation, by a South African scholar, explores African musical practices and their global influence. Tracing rhythms, vocal styles, and performance traditions across jazz, gospel, reggae, hip-hop, and Afrobeats, the speaker demonstrates how African musical sensibilities remain foundational to global sound. The discussion also considers the rise of AI-generated music and its limitations in capturing the historical depth and emotional resonance embedded in African and African diasporic music.
Together, this panel celebrates Dr. Du Bois’s Pan-Africanist legacy by mapping Africa–diaspora connections through landscape, text, and sound, showing how communities across continents continue to draw from shared roots and shared experiences to create, resist, remember, and reimagine.
Panelist
Dr. Kenton Butcher is an assistant professor of English at Bucknell University. He specializes in African American and South African literature and holds a Ph.D. in English from the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent essay, "Spatial Passing: The Revelation of Rural Blackness in Zakes Mda's Cion" appeared in Callaloo in 2024. He recently received a fellowship from the Institute of Citizens and Scholars to complete his monograph, titled Illegible: Black Appalachia and Self-Publishing as Fugitive Praxis, 1980-2010.
Panelist
Dr. Norma George is a professor of English, French and Spanish at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s oldest Historically Black College/ University (HBCU). She served as the institution’s first director of international programs. A native of the Caribbean island of Grenada, she has studied in the United States, France and Spain, and is passionate about international education, learning language, and the role of literature in preserving and disseminating knowledge. She is an avid reader and a world traveler.
Dr. George earned bachelor’s degrees in French and Spanish and a Master of Education degree from Cheyney University. She pursued a Master of Arts in Spanish at the University of Salamanca (Spain) and was awarded a Master of Arts degree in French and the Doctor of Modern Languages degree in French and Spanish by Middlebury College. She has completed extensive graduate coursework in English with a focus on composition and applied linguistics. Her areas of interest and research are African and Caribbean literatures and cultures, language acquisition and the role and impact of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBBCUs).
Panelist
Dr. Glenn Holtzman’s work intersects with the praxis of gender and sexuality and the digital humanities as scholar and researcher, which he presents at conferences. He is driven by the ideas of social cohesion, in his own teaching philosophy and experiential learning outside the traditional classroom. He has also contributed to objectives that seek to prioritize indigenous and popular African Music in creative showcases and curricular development.
Dr. Holtzman is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently an Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. He is passionate about music and altered states of consciousness, and active as a pianist, composer, and scholar.
Dr. Audrey Nonhlanhla Mbeje
Director, African Languages Program
Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania
Faculty Fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois College House
Moderator
Dr. Audrey Nonhlanhla Mbeje, born and raised in South Africa, is Director of the African Languages Program in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. An international scholar educated in both South Africa and the United States, she came to the U.S. as a Fulbright Scholar to pursue graduate studies and earned her M.A. and Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, specializing in Linguistics and Language Education, at Ball State University. A specialist in African linguistics—particularly Zulu and other Nguni languages—Dr. Mbeje’s work spans anaphora, pragmatics, multilingualism, and language pedagogy.
Dr. Mbeje is a national leader in African language education and the Principal Investigator and Project Director of more than $3 million in federal grants, including multiple Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA), International Research and Studies (IRS) grants, and National Security Education Program (NSEP) initiatives. Through these projects, she has developed impactful language and cultural immersion programs in South Africa and led major curriculum development efforts for K–12 educators, university faculty, and institutions nationwide.
Her Fulbright-Hays programs have provided deep experiential learning and research opportunities for U.S. scholars and supported the training of more than 250 undergraduate and graduate students—many of whom now serve as diplomats, public servants, and scholars engaged in Africa-related work.
A recognized leader in African language pedagogy, Dr. Mbeje has held major roles in national and international professional organizations. She served as President of the African Language Teachers Association (ALTA), served on the Executive Board of the National Council for Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL), and is a current member of the National Advisory Board of the National African Languages Resource Center (NALRC). Through these roles, she has helped shape national standards for African language instruction, contributed to language program evaluation frameworks, and advanced rigorous, standards-based African language programs across U.S. institutions.
Dr. Mbeje’s publications include Zulu Learners’ Reference Grammar and scholarly articles on Zulu discourse and language pedagogy. She is currently working on two book projects: Communicative Zulu and a Multi-media Zulu Reader. Her career is defined by a commitment to advancing African language and African Studies scholarship, expanding African Studies curricula, and fostering globally competent scholars across disciplines.
From Community to Country: Knowledge, Freedom, and Healing in a Time of Reckoning
Rooted in the legacy of W. E. B. Du Bois, this panel explores how knowledge, freedom, and healing are being negotiated and reimagined in changing times, both locally and across the nation. Drawing from lived experience, scholarship, organizing, and institutional leadership, panelists will examine how communities respond to structural inequities, historical trauma, and contemporary challenges through education, activism, and collective care.
Panelists will reflect on how local efforts (within schools, neighborhoods, cultural institutions, and movements) intersect with national struggles for racial justice, democracy, and liberation. Together, they will consider critical questions: What does it mean to produce and protect liberatory knowledge today? How do communities sustain healing while confronting harm? And how can local action inform national transformation?
This conversation invites participants to engage Du Bois’s enduring call for truth-telling, moral clarity, and collective responsibility as tools for building a more just and equitable future.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Anthony Monteiro, is a scholar and activist who writes on topics related to W.EStudies, Marxism, and race. He resides in Philadelphia, where he actively participates in social, economic, and political struggles.
Panelist
Dr. Christina Harris is an educator and diversity and inclusion professional with over 15 years of expertise in providing strategic DEI leadership. Dr. Harris holds a Ph.D in Africology & African American Studies from Temple University and a certificate in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace from the University of Southern Florida. Her research centers in race and identity formation, systems of oppression, gender politics, decolonial feminism, and LGBTQ empowerment.
Dr. Harris taught African American studies for over a decade at both Temple and Stockton Universities before becoming the Founder & CEO of Harris Diversity Consulting which offers implicit bias training and DEI consultation to corporate, educational, and healthcare organizations. She works with internal stakeholders to build cross-departmental coalitions, develop an in-depth understanding of DEI challenges and opportunities, and craft strategic interventions to meet institutional diversity goals. Dr. Harris lives in Philadelphia and is an avid reader who enjoys frequent international travel.
Panelist
Christopher R. Rogers, Ph.D is an educator and cultural worker from Chester, PA with more than a decade of experience in supporting justice-oriented arts, culture, and community in the Greater Philadelphia area.
He currently co-coordinates the Friends of The Tanner House, incubating a revitalized Henry Ossawa Tanner House at the intersection of Black heritage preservation and community cultural organizing. As a Facilitator with the W.E.B. Du Bois Movement School for Abolition & Reconstruction, he supports aspiring movement leaders serving communities most impacted by poverty, policing, and mass incarceration.
Dr. Jack Drummond
Faculty Fellow of the W.E.B. Du Bois College House
Moderator
Dr. Jack Drummond is a scholar-practitioner and restorative leadership facilitator/ trainer whose work focuses on psychological safety, community repair, and conflict transformation in educational, community based, and organizational settings. He serves as a facilitator for many engagements, with a particular strength in supporting dialogue where harm, mistrust, or tension are present.
Jack earned his Doctor of Education degree from the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, where his research examined restorative approaches to leadership and learning. As a Restorative Practitioner at the University of Pennsylvania and other organizations, he has led initiatives that foster emotionally safe spaces, strengthen accountability, and support healing-centered dialogue in high-pressure environments.
His facilitation approach draws on restorative frameworks that center voice, relationship, and responsibility, making his work especially relevant to campus climate conversations that require care, repair, and forward movement. Jack regularly teaches, consults, and presents on restorative practices, leadership development, and educational equity, and he brings these frameworks into dialogue settings shaped by identity, power, and institutional dynamics.
In addition to his academic and facilitation work, Jack is a classically trained violinist and leads the West Philadelphia String Music and Mentorship Program, which integrates leadership development, community building, and restorative practice. This background informs his facilitation presence, attentiveness, and capacity to hold space for complexity with steadiness and humanity.
Student Abstract Submissions
Undergraduate and graduate students from Penn and local universities are invited to submit a 250-word abstract to present their research at the 2026 Symposium.
Selected students will deliver a 20-minute presentation of their work and receive feedback from W.E.B. Du Bois Faculty Members during the Symposium.
Poster Funding: Limited funding may be available for printing costs if a research poster is needed or requested.
- Submission Opens: Monday, November 10, 2025
- Submission Closes (EXTENDED): Wednesday, February 11th 2026 11:59 PM
Register to Attend the Symposium
Registration for the Souls of Du Bois Symposium goes live on Monday, November 10, 2025.
About W.E.B. Du Bois College House
Founded in 1972, the W.E.B. Du Bois College House at the University of Pennsylvania is a four-year residential community committed to intellectual engagement, social justice, and the celebration of the African Diaspora. The Souls of Du Bois Symposium stands as one of its signature programs, amplifying scholarship and dialogue across generations.
Questions?
📧 Email: dubois@collegehouses.upenn.edu