National experts Nicole D. Porter and Christopher Petrella will discuss “Race, Mass Incarceration, and Private Prisons,” followed by a discussion of local organizing efforts.

Porter, who co-chairs the board of Grassroots Leadership, is director of advocacy for the Sentencing Project in Washington. The former director of the Texas ACLU’s Prison and Jail Accountability Project, she earned an MA in Public Affairs at the University of Texas’ LBJ School.

Petrella is a doctoral candidate in African American Studies at the University of California-Berkeley researching racial disparities in private prisons. He is working on a book titled “Courts, Contracts, and Corporate Corrections: The Paradox of the Private Prison State.”

The event is sponsored by Grassroots Leadership, in partnership with Huston-Tillotson University and Pi Gamma Mu, the honor society in social sciences. Light refreshments will be served.

More information online or contact Grassroots Leadership, (512) 499-8111(512) 499-8111.

Location: Huston-Tillotson University, Dickey-Lawless Auditorium, Room 200, Austin