Generate leadership through civic engagement, scholarship, and teaching. We strive to promote diversity, equity and inclusion and service to the university, as well as Iowa City and surrounding communities.
The scholarship of an African American religious history professor at the University of Iowa has come full circle with a book that examines the relationship between African American Islam and jazz.
Dr. Venise Berry was interviewed by KCRG, Channel 9 in Cedar Rapids, after speaking to a group of kindergarteners at Nixon Elementary School. In 2021, Iowa passed a law banning teaching certain concepts about race. “It’s very important that we understand that all experience isn’t the same,” Dr. Berry said. “And the only way that we can know how to treat each other is to understand each other’s experience. And to me, that is what teaching race is about.”
"In [Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s letter from Birmingham jail], King differentiated between just and unjust laws, citing measures that prevented Black Americans from voting as a form of legalized injustice.... By blocking voting reform today, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are the White moderates Dr. King warned us about."
