Award-winning poet, scholar, activist, and teacher CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS – known for her powerful New York Times piece You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument – explores how historical events shape the places we live, impacting not only the past but our present and future. Through her own activism, performance art, and writing, Caroline explores the intersections of culture and society, past and place, sharing insights in this compelling talk for audiences of all kinds.

When CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS wrote that her body was a monument, that was only the beginning of the thought. The body does so much work past the work. So much telling past the shape of the thing. From what we feed ourselves, to how we tell the truth of where our bodies have been, what they’ve done, so much can be read on the body, of the body’s story. This talk will explore Professor William’s unique take on American identity through this fresh, embodied lens.

As award-winning cookbook author, scholar, and amateur restaurateur Caroline Randall Williams shared on the Vox Conversations podcast, “Food is in everything for us. It’s in our history. It’s in how we sit. It’s in how we gather. It’s in how we write, what we wanna write, our political concerns, our creative obsessions. Food tells stories, and food is about survival and Black joy, for me. And so is everything else I do.” Caroline and her work are featured in the new Disney+ docuseries Hungry for Answers, produced by Viola Davis, in which she uncovers the fascinating, essential, and often untold Black stories behind some of America’s classic and emblematic food and spirits – she shares these stories and her profound insights in this memorable talk.

As a Southern activist, author and poet, CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS both celebrates and holds accountable the sentimental legacies of the South. A soul food cookbook author and ambassador, Williams writes lyrically about the South's charms and pride of her community. At the same time, she calls for a modern re-imagining of inclusivity, anti-racism and a reckoning of its racist past. With the hope and fresh insights of a millennial generation, Williams helps us re-imagine inclusivity and how to get there.

Award-winning poet, performance artist, and scholar CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS creates work across genres exploring the places where art, society, and history meet. In numerous successful collaborations, Caroline has explored the intersections of food and literature, poetry and ballet, and in this compelling talk she shares profound insights about creating your own path, building a foundation for your voice, and sharing your message.

CAROLINE RANDALL WILLIAMS has taught in two of the poorest states in the union - Mississippi and West Virginia - and she has been educated at two of the richest universities on the globe - Harvard and Oxford. After graduating from Harvard University, Caroline moved to Mississippi where she taught public school on a dirt road in Sunflower County for two years. In Mississippi, Caroline lived in an America many Americans are hardly aware of any longer, an America as rich in culture as it is wretched in poverty, towns still split into white and black by train tracks and bridges. In this talk, Caroline Randall Williams shares the lessons she learned from her students that corporations and privileged communities need to hear.