Events
Our Events are Vehicles for Change
As The Ethics Project enters a new phase of service, providing Trust-Based Relational Intervention training for professionals who work with children and youth exposed to adverse childhood experiences, we look back on other programs that have given voice to injustice, trauma, and systemic change.
Youth Art and Writing Project on Gun Violence, Peace, and Hope
To address the impact of mass incarceration on our children and young adults, of which gun violence is one of the most deadly, The Ethics Project initiated The Youth Art and Writing Project on Gun Violence, Peace, and Hope to give voice to the trauma that youth carry from exposure to gun fire, shootings, and too often the loss of classmate, friends, and siblings. None of the youth who participated in this program had ever spoken about their loss, fears, pain, and trauma.
Funded by the St. Louis Youth Violence Commission, ReCAST, and the Youth Violence Prevention Project in 2021, the project received additional funding by the Regional Arts Commission to continue the program in 2023-2024.
Consortiums of Agencies and Ministries
Former City of St. Louis Fire Chief speaks to a room of area professionals dedicated to justice, fairness, and safety. The Consortium of Agencies and Ministries was the first public event held by The Ethics Project, drawing 70 non-profit CEOs to the table.
The first consortium, held at the United Way of Greater St. Louis led to the design and implementation of The National Youth Summits on Education, Justice, and Leadership. Subsequent consortiums were held at the Deaconess Foundation and the Girls and Boys Clubs of St. Louis.
The State of Public Safety in St. Louis
The State of Public Safety in St. Louis was a community based event designed to bring together residents of the St. Louis regions to learn from and inform legislators, business leaders, educators, prosecutors, law enforcement, and non-profit executives to seek solutions to crime and violence in the region and to consider policies and laws that will promote opportunities, redirect behavior, and reverse current policies, laws, and practices that are ineffective or exacerbate crime and violence.
The annual event included open dialogue with panelists including the St. Louis City Prosecutor, Gabe Gore, State Senator Brian Williams, business icon Maxine Clark, founder of Build a Bear Corp. and others. It was hosted by Harris Stowe State University, Saint Louis University Department of Social Work, and Washington University School of Law.
Films and Documentaries
The Ethics Project has been involved in commissioning, filming, and pariticpating in a number of films and documentaries that bring awareness to issues of injustice.
CHANGE: In 2017 The Ethics Project commissioned Webster University’s Communications Department to create a documentary to inspire students participating in The National Youth Summit on Education, Justice and Leadership.
The Talk, Race in America: A national PBS documentary that can be viewed at https://www.thirteen.org/programs/talk-race-america/
Photo by Suzy Gorman
Youth Engagement
The National Youth Summit on Education Justice and Leadership
The success of the Youth Gang Summits and Leadership summits prompted expanding those efforts to a national level. Beginning in 2015, with the support of the Clark | Fox Family Foundation and students from around the country participated in the first National Youth Summit in conjunction with the University of Missouri St. Louis and the St. Louis Public Schools.
Over four years, summits were held at Howard University, the John F. Kennedy Center, the US Department of Justice, Morehouse College, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Jackson State University, and historic civil rights museums.
Youth Engagement
Mother 2 Mother
Designed as a one-time event following the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri, demand for the conversations with predominantly White audiences resulted in expanding into Father 2 Father with a panel of professional, African American fathers. It was ultimately filmed at the National Civil Right Museum in Memphis TN, as part of the nationally aired PBS documentary.
First held for a packed audience at the Missouri History Museum, the conversations shared the experiences and fears of a panel of professional, African American parents raising sons in a climate of racial injustice in America. Nearly 40 conversations were held over the course of five years.
Townhall Meetings & Police/Pastors Lunches
Townhall meetings are an important tool for bringing together a cross section of the community to interact with city leadership and exchange ideas. The Ethics Project has held numerous townhall meetings, before and after the year-long Ferguson protest, to discuss issues of public safety, police misconduct, housing, voting, education, and employment.
Following individual meetings with area pastors, The Ethics Project held lunches to bring together law enforcement with pastors of Black churches who conveyed stories about young congregants frequently stopped by police without cause, leading to in-depth conversations and structural considerations.
Debate Centered Instruction – The Summer Institute
With the leadership of Robert Litan, an attorney, author, and Brookings Institutions Non-Resident Scholar in Economics, and with funding from The Kauffman Foundation, The Ethics Project’s founder and president designed and implemented a Debate-Centered Summer Institute to teach educators the value of debate and to equip them with tools to teach any subject using debate. The institute reached nearly 100 teachers across the country and ignited interest in debate as a useful tool for teaching research, communication skills, and civility.
Ambassador Andrew J. Young Awards
The Ethics Project’s Ambassador Andrew J. Young Award for Outstanding Ethics, Service, and Commitment to Family and Community, was established in 2011 to recognize individuals in the community who have dedicated their lives to serving the community while honoring the family.
Named for Andrew Young, former US Ambassador and top aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Ambassador Young presented the first 13 awards to a cohort of community leaders. Among those awardees was Judge Jimmie Edwards who went on to be named the National Judge of the Year in 2013 by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Historic Figures
With America’s history slipping away and often omitting key African American figures and events, The Ethics Project called on descendants of individuals who embody this country’s long road toward racial justice. Lynne Jackson (great-great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott), and Kenneth Morris Jr. (descendant of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington), joined notable figures as Ambassador Andrew Young, Terrence Roberts (Little Rock Nine), Sr. Antona Ebo (Sisters of Selma), Dr. Bernard Lafayette, and others to lend their voices to hundreds of students at The National Youth Summits.
Social Justice Film Series
The Ethics Project collaborated with Washington University School of Law professor Kimberly Norwood for to develop a social justice film series. With the vision of using the messaging of film and the expertise of distinguished panels, The Social Justice Film Series featured a range of films that informed, inspired, and at times ignited action. From Hidden Figures, the story of NASA’s human computers who guided US space travel, to Woman in Gold, a biographical film documenting the reclamation of artworks stolen during World War I, to The Birth of a Nation that displayed disturbing characterizations of African Americans.