The African Centre for the Study of the United States, University of Pretoria (ACSUS-UP) invites you to a public lecture:

Exploring Race and Gender Based Activism for Public Health Promotion in the United States: learnings for South Africa

by Dr Diana Burnett, MPH, Howard University, USA.
 

For centuries, Black people in the United States and South Africa have been allies in the struggle for social justice and racial equity. This presentation will explore how examples of Black activism in the United States have created systems and structures to protect, promote, and preserve the health of their communities in the absence of public health infrastructure or a functioning or just public health system, which has provided the blueprint for the national adoption of health models. It will examine how the work of the Black Panther Party produced the Free Breakfast Program which is the exact model that led to the United States government’s development of the Free Breakfast program.

In this regard, the presentation will also interrogate how Black women’s activism around reproductive health has sought to transform reproductive care and the maternal mortality crisis and agency around reproductive rights. This will be foregrounded in an ethnographic study of Hebrew Israelites (a transnational spiritual community) in the United States and South Africa who have created a community-based public health system as a mode of public health prevention of non-communicable chronic disease. The presentation will round off by exploring the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst for revolutionising the public health space through qualifying racism as a public health crisis and modeling engagement for a global form of racial equity in both South Africa and the United States as they navigate multiple global pandemics.

Date: Thursday, October 26, 2023

Time: 17:00

Venue: Merensky Library Auditorium

To register: click here

Enquiries: Ms Lerato Dube: Administrator, ACSUS-UP, +27 12 420 2034, Email: [email protected]