Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters: A Multi-Media Book Panel

Music can be used to understand and communicate about social justice as it relates to food, agriculture, and the environment. Music can open the door for deeper understandings of inequity and justice in ways that step away from Eurocentric insistence on linear and written communication to teach, exchange knowledge, or debate. This event explored these modes of understanding and resistance through a multi-media discussion of Lynnée Denise’s 2023 book Why Willie Mae Thornton Matters (University of Texas Press).
The Food Studies Program, The Tishman Environment and Design Center, and the Food and Social Justice Action Research Lab (FJAR) at The New School were honored to host this multi-media panel event featuring author, sound practitioner, and DJ Lynnée Denise; artist, curator, mother, and producer Elissa Blount Moorhead; and Assistant Professor of Race and Media in the School of Media Studies at The New School Dr. Brittnay Proctor-Habil. The event was part of the Food Studies Program’s “Food, Foraging, and Social Justice” series and The New School’s Earth Month activities. It was also co-sponsored by the SexTech Lab and the Gender and Sexualities Studies Institute at The New School.
The event was moderated by Mike Harrington, Director of Sustainability Engagement at the Tishman Environment and Design Center, and Dr. Kristin Reynolds, Chair of Food Studies and Director of the FJAR Lab at The New School.