The year 2019 marks the 400th year since 20 Africans arrived in Jamestown, Va. as indentured servants in 1619, representing the earliest documented record of Blacks in, what is now, America. This system of indentured servitude rapidly gave way to the enslavement of Blacks which would endure until 1865 and was followed by almost another 100 years of Jim Crow racial segregation.

This 400-year history of racial oppression created a racially-stratified society in which racial inequities are deeply embedded in virtually every structural institution and system in American society, bolstered by a philosophy of White supremacy and Black racial inferiority.

The Project 400 Conference features high profile speakers to frame the historical and contemporary effects of slavery and institutional and structural racism in the perpetuation of racial disparities and inequities found among the African American population today. The conference will begin with a keynote address by world-renown literary scholar, author, Emmy-winning filmmaker, journalist, cultural critic, and institution builder, Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

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