Citizenship and the U.S. Constitution

Join us Thursday, September 17 at 6 p.m. for a Constitution Day conversation exploring the theme of citizenship and its relationship to the United States Constitution. Panelists James D. Ross, Professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and Omavi Shukur, Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, will offer expert analysis on this timely topic.

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day are recognized nationally each year on September 17, the date the U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787. This year marks the 239th anniversary.

ATTEND: Register here to attend the program in person at the Clinton Center. The program will be available on our YouTube channel the following day.

ASL interpretation is available during our events.

This program is presented by the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Presidential Library Museum, and the National Park Service.

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About the panelists: 

Jim Ross is an associate professor of history at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR), where he teaches courses in modern U.S. racial and class history as well as a range of courses on ancient and modern religion. He previously taught in the Little Rock School District and studied at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Auburn University. His first book was on the Southern Tenant Farmers Union in Arkansas.

Ross writes about education and public life in Little Rock for the Arkansas Times and through the Facebook page Our Community, Our Schools. He has been actively involved in the political struggle for equitable access and opportunity for all students in Little Rock schools for the past 26 years, working to make sure Little Rock makes good on the promises of the 1957 Central High School crisis and the broader struggle for educational equality.

His current research examines the history of the Little Rock School District from 1958 to 2015. His forthcoming work is tentatively titled The White Crisis: The Little Rock School District After the Central High Crisis.

Omavi Shukur is a writer, attorney, and law professor from Little Rock. As an attorney, he’s represented incarcerated people, Black school children, people accused of crimes, and victims of police violence in Arkansas and beyond. As an organizer, he worked alongside formerly incarcerated people to end the federal benefits ban for people with felony drug convictions in Arkansas. As an educator, he’s taught critical race theory at law schools around the nation. His writing may be found in the Georgetown Law Journal, Boston University Law Journal, Souls, The Root, the Arkansas Times, the Arkansas Journal of Social Change and Public Service, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of Parkview High School.