By Cole Hatcher
Nina Turner, groundbreaking Ohio politician and former co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign, will present “The Hook-Up: How Race and Class are Soulmates for Life” when she gives Ohio Wesleyan University’s 2022-2023 Butler A. Jones Lecture on Race and Society.
Turner will speak at 7 p.m. Sept. 20 in Room 301 of OWU’s Merrick Hall, 65 S. Sandusky St.. Admission is free.
“Very few relationships are forever, but in the case of race and class they are locked into a torrid love affair,” Turner said of her presentation. “The nature of this hook-up is steeped in the human struggle.
“The genesis of this struggle, be it race or class, is based on a system that was designed to exploit the masses of struggling people and force them to choose one over the other,” she said. “When the reality is that race solidarity and class solidarity are inextricably linked.
“We will explore how these two forces will always be soulmates for life and how we can bear witness to the ways in which our collective efforts to dismantle race and class inequality and inequity can transcend current systemic failure and birth a new world.”
Turner made history in 2005 as the first African American woman to represent Ward 1 on the Cleveland City Council, and again in 2008 as the first African American woman to serve as a state senator in Ohio’s 25th District.
She earned an associate’s degree from Cuyahoga Community College and her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Cleveland State University. Turner also is a former assistant professor of history at Cuyahoga Community College.
Ohio Wesleyan’s Butler A. Jones Lecture was established in 1995 in honor of Jones, Ph.D., a former university professor. In contributing to the quest for equality among races, Jones submitted 10 briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court in cases involving equal treatment of all citizens. The annual lecture is organized by OWU’s Department of Sociology and Anthropology and Social Justice Program.
Learn more about the lecture series and department at owu.edu/soan.
