Black History Month Opening Program and Keynote Address: Piper Anderson

Piper Anderson, founder and president of Create Forward, will be the keynote speaker for the opening of Black History Month. The national theme for Black History Month is The Black Family: Representation, Identity, and Diversity.

The program will begin with opening remarks from FIT President Joyce F. Brown at 12:30. Anderson’s talk will begin at 1 pm. She will be introduced by FIT Chief Diversity Officer Ron Milon.

Anderson’s talk will be followed by a live Q&A.

Join the opening program here.

About Piper Anderson
An entrepreneur, a skilled storyteller, and an effective coach, and trainer,  Piper Anderson is the founder and President of Create Forward, a social impact firm that produces experiences to advance equity and justice. Her career over the last 20 years has traversed the arts, youth development, community organizing, education and the healing arts providing her with an interdisciplinary toolbox of cultural strategies to advance social change.  

In 2016, Anderson was awarded a TED Residency to develop an innovative storytelling project called Mass Story Lab. Mass Story Lab has traveled to more than thirteen U.S cities creating immersive storytelling laboratories that center the experiences of people impacted by incarceration, then channeling these personal stories into instruments of justice. As part of her residency, Anderson gave a TED Talk, “Can Stories Create Justice?” Her talk challenges us to throw out conventional notions of punishment, and to imagine a justice system that builds and restores humanity. 

Piper Anderson is a professor at NYU’s Gallatin School and a founding member of the advisory board and faculty of NYU’s Prison Education Program. She has guest lectured at universities across the country including Harvard Law, Columbia University, Georgetown, and Occidental College. She is a New School Writing Democracy Fellow, a Culture Push Fellow for Utopian Practice, and a former Civic Hall Organizer in Residence.

This event is part of the FIT Diversity Council’s Black History Month activities; for a full schedule of activities, visit fitnyc.edu/blackhistory.

This virtual event is for the FIT community only.