Tools for Becoming a Racial Justice Warrior

In 2016, Dr. Camara Jones used her role as President of the American Public Health Association to launch that Association on a National Campaign Against Racism with three tasks: Name racism, ask “How is racism operating here?”, and organize and strategize to act. There are now at least 90 United States jurisdictions that have declared that “Racism is a public health crisis.” Are we ready to move beyond these declarations to action? Dr. Jones will share her allegories on “race” and racism to inspire and equip participants to become effective racial justice warriors.

A Conversation withDr. Camara Jones

Portrait of Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, Ph.D.

Photo courtesy Tony Rinaldo/Radcliffe Institute

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow at the Morehouse School of Medicine

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About the talk

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, Ph.D., will present a three part lecture and conversation: Understanding levels of health intervention, allegories on racism, and advice on how to organize, strategize, and act.

About the speaker

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, Ph.D., is a family physician, epidemiologist, and Past President of the American Public Health Association whose work focuses on naming, measuring, and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of the nation. Valued for her creativity and intellectual agility, she seeks to broaden the national health debate to include not only universal access to high quality health care, but also attention to the social determinants of health (including poverty) and the social determinants of equity (including racism). Her allegories on "race" and racism illuminate topics that are otherwise difficult for many Americans to understand or discuss.

Dr. Jones recently completed tenure as the 2019-2020 Evelyn Green Davis Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Past roles include Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health (1994 to 2000); Medical Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2000 to 2014); Senior Fellow at the Morehouse School of Medicine (2014 to present); and President of the American Public Health Association (2015 to 2016). She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University (2004 to present) and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine (2003 to present).

She has been elected to service on many professional boards, including her current service on the Board of Directors of the DeKalb County (Georgia) Board of Health and on the National Board of Public Health Examiners. She is also actively sought as a contributor to national efforts to eliminate health disparities and achieve health equity, including current service as a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on Black Men and Black Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine and as a faculty member for the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education’s Quality Improvement: Health Care Disparities Collaborative.

Her many honors include the Wellesley Alumnae Achievement Award, Wellesley College’s highest alumnae honor (2018); the John Snow Award, given in recognition of “enduring contributions to public health through epidemiologic methods and practice” by the American Public Health Association’s Epidemiology Section and the Royal Society for Public Health (2011); and awards named after luminaries David Satcher (2003), Hildrus A. Poindexter (2009), Paul Cornely (2016), Shirley Nathan Pulliam (2016), Louis Stokes (2018), Frances Borden-Hubbard (2018), and Cato T. Laurencin (2018).