Students participate in 2023 Charlotte Racial Justice Consortium

Four UNC Charlotte students recently represented the University during the 2023 Charlotte Racial Justice Consortium’s culminating event, held April 19 at Central Piedmont Community College.

In its third year, the CRJC is a partnership among UNC Charlotte, CPCC, Johnson C. Smith University, Johnson and Wales University’s Charlotte Campus and Queens University of Charlotte.

The consortium seeks to help the larger Charlotte community understand its history of race and racism, believes in its shared humanity, embraces a more comprehensive narrative on race, and develops faculty, staff and student leaders who work toward truth, justice, racial healing and systemic transformation.

The 2022-23 UNC Charlotte CRJC fellows were:

• Breze Ervin, senior, political science major and sociology minor
• AnaCarolyna Harris, sophomore, psychology major and child and family development minor
• Justice Silver, senior, communications major and mass media minor
• Paris Ward, junior, health systems management major and health/medical humanities minor

Every year, the fellows select a common local-impact project. This year, the students selected voting rights and advocacy. The UNC Charlotte team conducted outreach with full-time students to understand more about their voter registration status, political engagement and barriers to voting. This included a survey and on-campus video interviews. The results of the fellows’ work will be published on the UNC Charlotte CRJC website.

“Consistent throughout our collective three-cohort CRJC experience, we have learned that students, staff and faculty alike feel unprepared to discuss our nation’s and our community’s racially segregated past and present and the lasting effects of racism,” said Susan McCarter, Bonnie E. Cone Professor in Civic Engagement and faculty advisor to the CRJC. “Each year, during the culminating event, CRJC fellows and leaders credit the consortium with helping them learn and practice how to discuss race and racism and how to work towards systemic transformation. I am proud of our students and this program because they both will help us move towards racial justice for the greater Charlotte community and beyond.”

Photo (left to right): Matthew Mills, faculty co-leader, Justice Silver, Paris Ward, AnaCarolyna Harris, Breze Ervin and Susan McCarter, faculty co-leader