Move to Amend Ohio’s Quarterly Statewide Gathering  (Virtual Event)

Saturday, October 23 | 10 am ET

**Please RSVP below to receive Zoom link and dial in phone number**

Guest Speakers

Cynthia Brown, DeEscalate Ohio Now Coordinator

Pamela (Pam) Brooks, Jane and Eric Nord Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Oberlin College

Charles Peterson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies & Chair of Africana Studies, Oberlin College

Professors Brooks and Peterson will interrogate the post-Civil War’s Fourteenth Amendment, from its lofty promises of full citizenship and “equal protection of the laws” for all Americans to its hijacking by powerful interests. Providing current context of what this means for Ohioans today, Cynthia Brown, Ohio’s leading advocate for the state’s Repeal Qualified Immunity campaign, will discuss the doctrine that perversely grants immunity to officials who violate citizens’ rights, including those guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.

Background: Within twenty years of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification in 1868, Big Money successfully claimed that corporations are people (“constitutional persons”) that likewise deserved constitutional “We the People” rights. Since then, successive Supreme Court rulings have granted corporations other U.S. Constitution rights, all based on the Fourteenth Amendment. This important session will illustrate how powerful forces have subverted its guarantees of full citizenship for emancipated black people to instead legitimize laws that put property rights over black lives. 

The Fourteenth Amendment: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

The event is free, and all are welcome!