Crafting Democratic Futures

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded a $5M grant to the Center for Social Solutions (CSS) at the University of Michigan and nine institutional partners as part of the Foundation’s ‘Just Futures’ initiative. Crafting Democratic Futures: Situating Colleges and Universities in Community-based Reparations Solutions, emerges from the Center’s focus on slavery and its aftermath and is informed by three generations of humanistic scholarship and what that scholarship suggests for all seeking just futures. 

Connecticut College is one of the nine institutional partners. The Crafting Democratic Futures project focused on collecting racial narratives as a central element, in order to upend some of the traditional ways these narratives are collected and communicated.  Specifically, they worked to empower both younger and older members of the New London community not only to tell their personal stories but to become skilled interviewers with the ability to gather stories of struggle and triumph against the legacy of racism.  The hope is that these stories can contribute to more informed school curricula and reparative civic action. On June The project brought multiple generations of New London residents together for "Voices Across Generations: Race and New London", a multi-generational theater and dance performance on July 16, 2022.

Horizons Beyond High School continues the Crafting Democratic Futures tradition through our annual meeting with local elders. On July 1, 2024, Horizons will be at Mitchell College to meet with and learn from elders in the community.

Many thanks to the following individuals:

Nakia Hamlett, co-principal investigator and Assistant Professor of Psychology

Jefferson Singer, co-principal investigator and Faulk Foundation Professor of Psychology

Jerry Fischer, Community Fellow