How can art shape society and advance racial justice? Join us for Juilliard’s 12th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Speaker Series featuring Sarah Lewis, renowned Harvard professor and founder of Vision & Justice (@VisionandJustice). Her inspiring lecture will explore the connections between art, race, and democracy. 📅 Thursday, Jan 23 🕕 6:00PM 📍 Paul Hall This event is free and open to the public, but tickets are limited and going fast—reserve yours now at the link in our bio. Let’s come together to envision a more just future.
The Urban League of Hampton Roads invited me to deliver the 41st Annual Martin Luther King Jr. keynote on January 16, 2025, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. What a gathering, 1,300 strong. I am so grateful. I have been silent online because I have been moving fast with joy putting a lot on the page, staying in the light. Another book done this year, while preparing a few things we’ll announce soon!
The Urban League of Hampton Roads invited me to deliver the 41st Annual Martin Luther King Jr. keynote on January 16, 2025, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. What a gathering, 1,300 strong. I am so grateful. I have been silent online because I have been moving fast with joy putting a lot on the page, staying in the light. Another book done this year, while preparing a few things we’ll announce soon!
The Urban League of Hampton Roads invited me to deliver the 41st Annual Martin Luther King Jr. keynote on January 16, 2025, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. What a gathering, 1,300 strong. I am so grateful. I have been silent online because I have been moving fast with joy putting a lot on the page, staying in the light. Another book done this year, while preparing a few things we’ll announce soon!
The Urban League of Hampton Roads invited me to deliver the 41st Annual Martin Luther King Jr. keynote on January 16, 2025, at the Virginia Beach Convention Center. What a gathering, 1,300 strong. I am so grateful. I have been silent online because I have been moving fast with joy putting a lot on the page, staying in the light. Another book done this year, while preparing a few things we’ll announce soon!
Last day of class. Adore these students!
Last day of class. Adore these students!
Last day of class. Adore these students!
Wow!! Thank you @chicagotribune: “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America by Sarah Lewis: Lewis, a Harvard University cultural historian with a specialty in how visual arts shape the world, is one of a few innovators worthy of that overused title ‘disruptor.’ She works here in the period from the Civil War to Jim Crow, showing how civic leaders (Woodrow Wilson, P.T. Barnum) willfully disregarded evidence that race was a myth, establishing racial hierarchy. It’s a fascinating history of cultural blindness, centered on the Caucasus region in Europe, from which we derive ‘caucasian,’ and where scholars rooted whiteness. Americans sympathized with the Caucasus people as they went to war against Russia — and then photos circulated showing a population far from just white. It’s a handsome, art-filled book about how choosing to ignore facts creates the illusion of truth.” —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
Wow!! Thank you @chicagotribune: “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America by Sarah Lewis: Lewis, a Harvard University cultural historian with a specialty in how visual arts shape the world, is one of a few innovators worthy of that overused title ‘disruptor.’ She works here in the period from the Civil War to Jim Crow, showing how civic leaders (Woodrow Wilson, P.T. Barnum) willfully disregarded evidence that race was a myth, establishing racial hierarchy. It’s a fascinating history of cultural blindness, centered on the Caucasus region in Europe, from which we derive ‘caucasian,’ and where scholars rooted whiteness. Americans sympathized with the Caucasus people as they went to war against Russia — and then photos circulated showing a population far from just white. It’s a handsome, art-filled book about how choosing to ignore facts creates the illusion of truth.” —Christopher Borrelli, Chicago Tribune
Here’s to speaking the truth and honoring the miracles that let us see behind the veil. Here’s to friendship and trust and care. Here’s to the gift of the fact of life itself and all the wonder it brings when we stay alive to it. I am so grateful to incredible @caseygerald and the extraordinary team at @firstlightbooks and @originstudiohouse in Austin, Texas as well as the inimitable @julietrblake for the gift of this powerful evening! Austin is a kind of home
I cannot wait. Any conversation with Casey Gerald is 🔥. Even a dear friend wanted to fly in from Jamaica just for this talk in Austin. YES because @caseygerald is the truth. I first fully felt his spirit when he was on MSNBC @morningjoe dropping bombs so hot I couldn’t believe he was on the air. I wrote him on the spot from half way around the world with @sincerely.jenee to salute his soulful grace. So of course it would be Casey’s grace and brilliance that helped guide me to completing The Unseen Truth. I am so deeply grateful. We deliberately planned this talk for after the election…We hope to see you if you’re in Austin on Nov 12th at First Light Books. Thank you Casey for being a light for us all. Thank you to @firstlightbooks for hosting and to Origin and Juliet Blake for making the night so warm I feel like it has already happened.
Giving out free coconuts 🥥🥥🥥 last week was no accident.. it was to honor the ancestors but also to remind everyone who joined us to VOTE! I loved this talk a few days ago with visionary friends @hankwillisthomas and @jacqueline_woodson at @bplpresents Brooklyn Public Library about The Unseen Truth! Thank you to the wonderful team at the BPL for hosting us with such warmth and care. #vote.
We all stand on the shoulders of giants. I’m standing two centuries removed from the legacy that constantly inspires me. What an honor and a joy it was to have a chance to salute my inspiration for the Vision and Justice initiative at the extraordinary @townandcountrymag Philanthropy Summit, opened by Bryan Stevenson’s powerful keynote, on a panel with @stephruhle, @henrytimms, and Dianne Chipps Bailey. Thank you @stellenevolandes , @adamrathe, and Norman Vanamee, for your powerful leadership, vision, and care. Let’s keep doing the work to make our ancestors proud. 💫💫
Wow. The Vision & Justice issues and The Unseen Truth are on display in the American Art installation wing at the Brooklyn Museum as a cultural landmark. I’m stunned. Thank you to Stephanie Sparling Williams, Anne Pasternak, and the advisory team that worked on this with such care. We are changing this art world, building on the unfinished work of our ancestors, aren’t we. And who is chopping those onions? There is so much ahead! Let’s go. I am so ready and grateful.
This profile in the Boston Globe reveals things I didn’t even know about myself. Wow. Thank you Brooke Hauser and also Erin Clark. Out online now and in print this weekend.
Advance copy…Almost here… 2 months out.
Advance copy…Almost here… 2 months out.
In her new book, “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America” (@harvardpress), the historian and @harvard professor @sarahelizabethlewis1—the guest on Ep. 117 of Time Sensitive—unpacks a major part of United States history that until now wasn’t just brushed over, but intentionally buried. Through an exhaustive level of scholarship, she details the formation of what she calls “conditioned sight” in America, placing a particular emphasis on photography and visual culture. A book of history, it’s also about dismantling the flimsy, fictitious foundations on which racial hierarchy in the U.S. was formed—and with this knowledge, laying the groundwork for a future of transformational change and justice. Long overdue, “The Unseen Truth” is a watershed book that calls to mind works by history-shaping authors such as James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and bell hooks. Listen to Lewis discuss the process of writing the book and more at link in bio 🎧
You already know. 😀@ibramxk, I cannot wait. Thank you. See you in DC on Weds.
We know that no one is better than any one else. American society once had the evidence, in plain view, of the fiction and production of race. Society choose to disregard it. Can we do better now if we have the will. Imani, Imani, Imani. The kind MacArthur Genius Imani Perry. Thank you for the gift of this conversation on Monday to launch The Unseen Truth at The Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. Thank you for the inspiration you have offered me for so long. Thank you for the honor of speaking with you about this book! The only difficult part was holding in all of the questions I had about your magnificent work. Part 2, I hope!!
Giving a keynote this morning about Vision and Justice at The George School was so moving I just have to salute this school with the motto, Mind the Light. That is what I felt in every question, every interaction. That quaker tradition of understanding that everyone is a light is so powerfully lived out at George. Thank you for the honor of the invitation, and Congratulations to Justin Brandon on being installed as the next leader of the school today. It was an honor to start it off with this keynote. And to young Hilton who wants to be President, I believe you very well might be one day young man. Keep shining that light.
Giving a keynote this morning about Vision and Justice at The George School was so moving I just have to salute this school with the motto, Mind the Light. That is what I felt in every question, every interaction. That quaker tradition of understanding that everyone is a light is so powerfully lived out at George. Thank you for the honor of the invitation, and Congratulations to Justin Brandon on being installed as the next leader of the school today. It was an honor to start it off with this keynote. And to young Hilton who wants to be President, I believe you very well might be one day young man. Keep shining that light.
Giving a keynote this morning about Vision and Justice at The George School was so moving I just have to salute this school with the motto, Mind the Light. That is what I felt in every question, every interaction. That quaker tradition of understanding that everyone is a light is so powerfully lived out at George. Thank you for the honor of the invitation, and Congratulations to Justin Brandon on being installed as the next leader of the school today. It was an honor to start it off with this keynote. And to young Hilton who wants to be President, I believe you very well might be one day young man. Keep shining that light.
