Join Erika W. Wilson, Professor of Law, Wade Edwards Distinguished Scholar, and Director of the Critical Race Lawyering Civil Rights Clinic at UNC-Chapel Hill; Serena Sebring, Executive Director of Blueprint NC; and Stormie Daie, member of the House of Coxx, for a panel on the lessons that Pauli's legacy holds for progressive struggle in the 21st century. Moderated by Antonia Randolph, Assistant Professor of American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Meet our Panel:
Erika K. Wilson is a Professor of Law and the Wade Edwards Distinguished Scholar at the University of North Carolina School of Law. Her areas of expertise include civil litigation, civil rights, clinical legal education, critical race theory, education law, and public policy. Her scholarship was cited by United States Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissenting opinion in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 337 (2023). Professor Wilson is also the founder of the Critical Race Lawyering Civil Rights Clinic, a clinic that teaches law students how to bridge the gap between Critical Race Theory as an academic discipline and the practice of law.
Serena Sebring is a queer Black feminist, mother, organizer, and educator. Sebring joined the Blueprint NC team in 2020, after more than 10 years of experience in building power, community organizing, policy campaigns, and base-building. Previously, she served as Regional Organizing Lead for Southerners on New Ground (SONG). Serena received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2005, her M.A. in Sociology from Duke University in 2008, and her Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University, in 2012. Since 2005, she has woven and nurtured relationships across the state with organizers, artists, policy-makers, workers, parents, and caregivers on front porches, in church basements and city council rooms, at the statehouse and in the streets.
Raafe Purnsley is an NC native and proud queer black fem. Purnsley utilizes the character, Stormie Daie, to connect with their queer community and become an emcee, educator, and performer. Purnsley, as Stormie Daie, has been able to create safe space for queer people and has been afforded many amazing opportunities like modeling for New York Fashion Week, emceeing a Nat'l Trans Prom on the steps of Capital, and appearing in Vogue. Stormie is blessed to share her life with a fellow activist, and future nurse, Joaquin Carcaño, where they live with their three mutts in Durham. Here Purnsley and Daie have the honor of facilitating queer community whether it be as a Drag Story Reader, teaching Science with Stormie, or simply serving it on stages like the historic Carolina Theater.
Antonia Randolph (moderator) is the Jonathon M. Hess Term Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Her book, The Wrong Kind of Different: Challenging the Meaning of Diversity in American Classrooms (Teachers College 2012), examined the hierarchies elementary school teachers constructed among students of color. She has published in Scalawag and The Feminist Wire. Her current book project, That's My Heart: Queering Intimacy in Hip-Hop Culture, forthcoming from University of California Press, examines portrayals of black male intimacy in hip-hop culture.
