Registration is not required for this event.  Join the online presentation at 7:30am on Wednesday, February 2, 2022 at this link.

Please join the White Bear Rotary Club for a program on Black Wall Street. This is a wonderful opportunity to hear from a nationally renowned speaker and author, Dr. Duchess Harris, on a little known part of history.

Professor Harris arrived at Macalester as an instructor and a visiting assistant professor in 1994, teaching courses in women’s and gender studies. In 1998 she joined the tenure-track faculty in political science and African American studies. She was tenured in 2004, earned a Juris Doctorate in 2011, and was promoted to
full professor in 2013. Dr. Harris was also a founding member of the American Studies department and served as chair for eight years, including as its inaugural chair.  The breadth of courses Dr. Harris has taught is wide-ranging, and includes Foundations of U.S. Politics, Policy Analysis: Health Care in the United States, Black Political Thought, Race and the Law, and “The Obama Presidency.” Among the things she’s most proud of during her time at Macalester are the lifelong bonds she builds with her students in the classroom.

Professor Harris was a Mellon Mays Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. She graduated with a degree in American  History.  In 1990, she was elected Student Body President, which made her the first Black woman to serve in this role at an Ivy League institution. She earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Minnesota. She did a Policy Fellowship at the Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, and also completed Postdoctoral Fellowships at the University of Minnesota Law School and the University of Georgia.
Harris has advocated on the national level at the Congressional Black Caucus.  Locally, she was appointed as a Minneapolis Civil Rights Commissioner by Mayor Sharon Sayles Belton, appointed to the Governor’s Council on Black Minnesotans by Governor Jesse Ventura, appointed to Co-Chair the Statewide Martin Luther King Holiday (twice) by Governor Mark Dayton; and appointed to the Board of Public Defense by Governor Tim Walz.