Renowned professor, writer, and filmmaker Laurence Ralph joins the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy to deliver a compelling keynote on the themes of his latest book, Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him. Through gripping storytelling and incisive analysis, Ralph examines how structural challenges and institutional neglect shape the lives of underserved communities. Drawing from years of research and advocacy, he unpacks the conditions contributing to cycles of harm and loss.
With a career spanning acclaimed works like Renegade Dreams and The Torture Letters, Ralph has been at the forefront of conversations on governance, policy, and institutional accountability. His scholarship—featured in The New York Times, The Paris Review, and The Nation—offers critical insights into the long-term effects of policy decisions on communities.
This discussion, moderated by Dr. Peniel Joseph, invites attendees to critically examine the role of institutions in shaping communities and explore pathways for meaningful reform.
About the Speaker
Laurence Ralph is a professor, writer, and filmmaker. His work explores how police abuse, mass incarceration, and the drug trade make injury and premature death seem natural for people of color. His first book, Renegade Dreams (University of Chicago Press, 2014), received the C. Wright Mills Award and the J.I. Staley Prize. His second book, The Torture Letters (University of Chicago Press, 2020), explores a decades-long scandal in which hundreds of Black men were tortured in police custody. The Torture Letters is also the name of his award-winning, animated short film, which is featured in The New York Times Op-Doc series. Laurence’s latest book, Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him, was released in 2024 by Grand Central Publishing. Laurence’s work has been featured in The Paris Review, The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Nation, The Chicago Review of Books, Boston Review and Literary Hub, to name a few.
Laurence has held tenured appointments in the African & African American studies and anthropology departments at Harvard. Ralph has been awarded many fellowships for his work, some of which include the Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellowships, as well as grants from the National Science Foundation, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the National Research Council of the National Academies. He is a member of the Institute for Advanced Study, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.