In Haiti and many other Afro-diasporic sites, the crossroads is a sacred site. It is a place where collisions occur and a place where people get lost, but it is also a spot where more than one path is visible, a space where choices have to be made. When the New York area hip hop group The Fugees recorded their album The Score they invoked the spirit of the crossroads to mark movements of people across time and space in significant ways. If The Clash taught us that the future is unwritten, The Fugees demonstrated that the past and the present do not have to remain unsung.

Professor George Lipsitz holds a joint appointment in Black Studies and Sociology at UCSB. His key areas include social movements, urban culture, and inequality. Author of ground-breaking work on music and post-modernism, globalization, race, and place, his books include The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, A Life in the Struggle: Ivory Perry and the Culture of Opposition, Dangerous Crossroads, and Time Passages. Lipsitz received his Ph.D. in History at the University of Wisconsin and has been active in struggles for fair housing and educational equity.

Reception to follow in the Music Bowl.