Head shot of Forrest Stuart. He is smiling with arms crossed over chest, wearing a blue suit and is leaning against a pillar.

Forrest Stuart and Cathy Cohen: Black Youth and Political Agency in the 21st Century

Chicago Humanities Festival

Media representations of Black urban youth often paint a simplistic and negative picture of their realities and aspirations. Join sociologist and recent MacArthur Fellow Forrest Stuart and political scientist Cathy Cohen for a conversation that provides a more nuanced portrait of the lives of Black youth. Stuart’s Ballad of the Bullet explores the creative and economic strategies young musicians on Chicago’s South Side employ to lift themselves out of poverty, often at their own peril. Cohen’s Democracy Remixed, based on the findings of The Black Youth Project, examines the lived experience of navigating opportunity and discrimination.

This program is presented in partnership with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago and Bank of America. It was recorded in November 2020 as part of CHF's virtual Fall Festival.

Forrest Stuart
Forrest Stuart is associate professor of sociology and director of the Ethnography Lab at Stanford University. He is the author of Down, Out, and Under Arrest and most recently Ballad of the Bullet. A 2020 MacArthur Fellow, Stuart's work challenges long-held assumptions about the forces that shape urban poverty and violence, and brings light to the lived reality of those who experience it.

Cathy Cohen
Cathy J. Cohen is the David and Mary Winton Green Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago and the creator of the Black Youth Project.

Chicago Humanities Festival
For more than 30 years the Chicago Humanities Festival has brought compelling speakers and inspiring programming to Chicago. Our hope is that you leave Festival programs transformed, with new insights and perspectives that change how you see yourself, our community, and our world.