Press
Release

Honored that Dr. Kali-Ahset Amen, Executive Director of the John Lewis Fellowship Humanity in Action, commissioned me to deliver a spoken word piece in honor of the late John Lewis. I pray that this small tribute does justice to his living legacy as champion for civil and human rights in the United States and beyond. Recorded in Stanford campus, I read my original piece, "Iliad in America: Cast List."

My call for action as part of the "Stop the Cycle of Hate" series, thrown together by San Mateo County Harbor Board Commissioner Virginia Kiraly and San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto.

Watch Duke Alumni as they talk to the personal, intellectual, academic, and spiritual trajectory through life, Duke, and graduate school. Born and raised in the East Palo Alto, CA Antonio López received his B.A. in Global Cultural Studies and African & African-American studies from Duke University. He's received scholarships to attend the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, the Home School, Tin House Summer Workshop, the Key West Literary Seminar, and the Vermont Studio Center. He is a proud member of the Macondo Writers Workshop, a CantoMundo Fellow, and a 2019 Adroit Summer Mentor. His nonfiction has been featured or is forthcoming in PEN/America, The Latino Book Review, and Insider Higher Education, and his poetry in BOAAT, Hayden's Ferry Review, Adroit Journal, Puerto del Sol, Huizache, Tin House and elsewhere. He was runner up for the inaugural Palette Poetry Spotlight Award of 2019 and the recipient of the 2019 Katherine Bakeless Nelson Award in Poetry for the 2019 Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He received his Masters in Fine Arts (poetry) at Rutgers-Newark. As a 2018 Marshall Scholar, he received a Masters in Philosophy in Modern Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Oxford, where he was also poetry editor of the Oxford Review of Books. This event is sponsored by the Duke Islamic Studies Center, Duke University Middle East Studies Center, The Department of African and African American Studies at Duke, The Center for Muslim Life at Duke, Juhood Magazine, and The Focus Program at Duke.

In this meeting, we provide updates to the committee regarding our current discussions with the District. We decided to name Ad Hoc Members Antonio Lopez and Maurice Goodman to officially represent the Committee for the Superintendent's Equity and Diversity Advisory Council, due to meet beginning in April in order to allot the District time to safely and successfully return students back to school.