What does it mean to engage in social justice related research? Join the Social Justice Institute for its R & R (Research and Refreshment) Lecture Series to hear from campus and community leaders on how social justice is central to their work. You are welcome to bring your lunch; drinks and desserts will be provided. There will be time for questions following the presentation.
On Friday, April 5, from 12:30 to 2 p.m in room A09 at Crawford Hall, Aundra Willis Carrasco will give a lecture about the buried history of Winston Willis’ empire on Cleveland’s east side in the 1960s and 1970s, and his family’s battle for reparations and lost capital that continues to the present day.
Willis Carrasco is a freelance writer, essayist, and author of Winston Willis: A Memoir. After becoming a self-made millionaire at the age of 28, Winston seized the hidden opportunity presented by riot-induced white flight and wisely invested in commercial real estate. Making sweeping purchases of numerous abandoned properties, he transformed the previously crime-ridden area and made something out of nothing. A widely successful urban paradise, and a brilliant symbol of Black prosperity. But in doing so, he unwittingly triggered racial resentment and made enemies of politically powerful individuals and the corrupt local judiciary.