CHARTER DAY CONVOCATION
Charter Day is the convocation that celebrates the chartering of Bennett College as a four-year college by the State of North Carolina in 1889. It is held annually on the third Sunday of March, following Senior Day. Charter Day is a major convocation that requires a full academic procession of faculty, staff, administrators, and the entire student body. Seniors who received their robes during the Senior Day Convocation are allowed to wear their academic regalia.
Introducing our 2023 Charter Day Speaker: Dr. Jeanne Theoharis
One of Bennett College’s most noteworthy convocations, Charter Day, takes place on March 26, 2023. Charter Day celebrates the chartering of Bennett College as a four-year college by the State of North Carolina in 1889. We are delighted to announce that this year’s Charter Day speaker is Dr. Jeanne Theoharis!
Dr. Theoharis is a distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of City University of New York (CUNY). She is the author/ co-author of eleven books and numerous articles on the civil rights and Black Power movements, and the contemporary politics of race in the United States.
Her widely-acclaimed biography, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, won a 2014 NAACP Image Award and the Letitia Woods Brown Award from the Association of Black Women Historians. It appeared on the New York Times bestseller list and has been adapted into a documentary of the same name. The documentary was directed by Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen, and executive produced by Soledad O’Brien for NBC-Peacock, where she served as a consulting producer.
The Young Adult adaptation with Brandy Colbert, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks for Young People, was included in the Best Books of 2021 by the Chicago Public Library and Kirkus Reviews. Jeanne’s book, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History, won the 2018 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize in Nonfiction. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, The Nation, Slate, the Atlantic, Boston Review, Salon, the Intercept, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
We look forward to hearing the inspiring message she has for our Bennett community.
Charter Day Convocation details:
Date: March 26, 2023
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Venue: Annie Merner Pfeiffer Chapel
Watch live: Bennett.edu/live
Masks are required indoors.