Season of Nonviolence
Inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., César Chávez and Chief Wilma Mankiller, the annual Season of Nonviolence honors these leaders’ visions for an empowered, nonviolent world. Colleges and universities throughout the country celebrate the Season of Nonviolence by bringing together community partners to educate and empower communities on how to use nonviolent methods to create a more peaceful world.
2025 will be the 17th year Central Oregon Community College has been hosting programming to honor the Season of Nonviolence. The programming is co-presented by The Nancy R. Chandler Lecture Series and the College's Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
All Season of Nonviolence events are FREE and OPEN to the public.
We will announce our 2025 Season of Nonviolence Programming line-up during Fall Quarter.
Thank you to our 2024 Season of Nonviolence Sponsors!
Presenting Sponsor:
First Story
Premier Sponsor:
The National Endowment for the Humanities
With additional support from:
Brooks Resources Corporation
Cascades Academy of Central Oregon
COCC's Barber Library
Oregon Community Foundation-The Casey Family Fund
St. Charles Health System
Questions? Need more information? Contact Charlotte Gilbride cgilbride@cocc.edu / 541-383-7272 or Christy Walker cwalker2@cocc.edu / 541-383-7412.
Completed Season of Nonviolence Events 2024
Allyship, Genderless Mothering & Self-Transformation
Jodie Patterson Author, Activist, Human Rights Campaign Board member
Tuesday, January 23, 6 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Wille Hall, Coats Campus Center
Livestream also available
Jodie Patterson explored the lithe art of Genderless Mothering —
a unique form of social activism that embraces feminism, Black
pride, and LGBTQIA+ activism. Patterson shared her personal
story as a thought leader and mother of five, and introduced
attendees to the Human Rights Campaign for a comprehensive
overview of America’s state of affairs on LGBTQIA+ issues.
Jodie Patterson is an author, activist, beauty explorer and mother of 5. She was the first black person to hold the position of Chair of the Human Rights Campaign Foundation Board, our nation’s largest LGBT organization. As a globally recognized activist, she speaks on topics of radical parenting, identity, and gender.
When her son announced at the age of 3 “Mama I’m not a girl. I’m a boy”, she set out to inform herself, shift her own bias and change the way her community understood gender. Patterson chronicled that journey in her memoir, The Bold World: A Memoir of Family and Transformation - hailed by Alice Walker as “Marvelous”.
Cosmopolitan Magazine filmed a mini documentary on Jodie’s family in 2016 - reaching over 11 million views.
Her second book, Born Ready: The True Story Of A Boy Named Penelope is an award winning children’s book that was gifted to all public schools in the state of Kansas
Patterson is also a long-standing entrepreneur, co-founding two beauty companies and receiving Beauty Skin Expert of the Year award by Cosmopolitan Magazine. She co-owns the live performance venue Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater.
Along with the work Patterson does with the Human Rights Campaign, she sits on the Board of Directors for The Shabazz Center - which upholds the legacy and teachings of Malcolm X, as well as sits on Mount Sinai’s Institute for Health Equity Research Task Force, and Mount Sinai’s Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery Advisory Board. Patterson is also on the Advisory Board of the Ackerman Institute’s Gender & Family Project. The United Nations recognized Patterson as a Champion of Change.
Jodie Patterson lives in Brooklyn where she co-raises her children with love, education and family solidarity.
Student-Only Event
A Conversation with Jodie Patterson
Tuesday, January 23, noon-1 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Multicultural Center, Coats Campus Center
Students were invited to join an informal conversation and Q & A with author and activist
Jodie Patterson.
Community Book Conversations
Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration
by Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts
Students and community members joined us and other community organizations for the 2024 Season of Nonviolence book discussions. This year’s selection was Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts' Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration.
In this collection of lyrical, autobiographical essays, Lewis-Giggetts shares how her sense of joy has evolved, even in the midst of trauma. She offers redemptive strength of joy in Black culture, challenging the one-note narrative of Black life as solely comprised of trauma and hardship.
The Father's Group Discussion Group
Tuesdays beginning January 2, 3:30-5:00 p.m.
Virtual
Barber Library Discussion Group
Tuesdays beginning January 16, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Virtual
Afrocentric Club Discussion Group
Thursdays beginning January 18, 5-6 p.m.
Hybrid (Zoom and in person)
Trinity Episcopal Church Discussion Group
Thursdays beginning January 18, 3:30-5 p.m.
In person
COCC Diversity & Inclusion Discussion Group
Mondays beginning January 22, 5-6 p.m.
Virtual
Unity Spiritual Community of Central Oregon Discussion Group
Tuesdays beginning February 13, 4:30-5:30 p.m.
In person
Drum-Making Class:Celebrating the Work of Frederick Douglass and Bob MarleyFebruary 6, 4-5:30 p.m. Black History Month is celebrated in part because of the contributions of abolitionist
Frederick Douglass and activist Bob Marley, who exposed racism, poverty, and violence
in the world while teaching all to passionately advocate for humanity.
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Blend: On Being Black in BendFilm ScreeningFriday, February 23, 6-8 p.m. "Blend" is a documentary filmed and edited in Central Oregon that asks 10 Black Central Oregonians about their experiences living, working, and playing on the High Desert. Film creator Kenny Adams uses the film to explore and share uncensored lived experiences. |
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Author Event with Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
Black Joy: A Strategy for Freedom, Healing, and Reckoning
Tuesday, February 20, 6 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Wille Hall, Coats Campus Center
Livestream also available
As the author of the 2023 NAACP Image Award-winning book, Black Joy: Stories of Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration, Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts presented a blueprint for making space for Black joy in the world, workplace, the classroom, and our neighborhoods. She highlighted how this is a form of wellness and liberation work that can and should be a core value in any and all diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts offers those who read her work and hear
her speak an authentic experience; an opportunity to explore the race,
culture, identity, education, and faith/spirituality at the deepest levels.
She is the host of the podcast, HeARTtalk with Tracey Michae’l, and
founder of HeARTspace, a healing community created to serve those who
have experienced trauma of any kind through the use of storytelling and
the arts.
As a writer, Tracey has published twenty books including several
collaborations with numerous high-profile authors including Tabitha
Brown and Yusef Salaam. In 2021, Tracey became one of 20 writers who
contributed to the groundbreaking book, You are Your Best Thing:
Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience edited by
acclaimed researcher, Brene Brown, and founder of the MeToo Movement,
Tarana Burke. Her critically-acclaimed book, Black Joy: Stories of
Resistance, Resilience, and Restoration (Gallery/Simon and Schuster)
has received rave reviews from celebrities like Kerry Washington and
media outlets like Good Morning America, Essence Magazine, and
USA Today. Black Joy won the 2023 NAACP Image Award for
Outstanding Literary Work-Instructional. Her latest book is Then They
Came for Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence which
has won the Wilbur Award for Excellence in Writing.
Student-Only Event
A Conversation with Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts
Tuesday, February 20, noon-1 p.m.
Multicultural Center, Coats Campus Center, COCC Bend Campus
Students were invited to join an informal conversation and Q & A with author, speaker,
and thought leader Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts.
Community Conversations
The Conversation Project Programs are sponsored by Oregon Humanities. They bring people together to talk about their beliefs and experiences around timely and important issues and ideas.
Music as a Tool for Social Justice
with Facilitator Donovan Scribes
We explored the meaning of "justice" as we examined Black life in Oregon through the eyes of hip-hop. Writer, artist, and producer Donovan Scribes led the conversation and an exploration of Oregon as he let music guide us through a shared dialogue about race and justice in post-2020 society.
Virtual Conversation
Wednesday, March 6
6-7:30 p.m.
Donovan Scribes (f.k.a. Donovan M. Smith) is an award-winning writer, artist, and speaker based in Portland. He has written for a number of publications, including the Oregonian, Skanner and iHeartRadio, where he served as a cowriter on the ten-part top 100 iTunes podcast Uprising: a Guide from Portland, detailing the history behind the more than one-hundred days of protest in Portland in 2020. His “Gentrification is WEIRD!” platform has been used to steer important dialogue about Black history and futures in Oregon, policing, and reimagining George Park in St. Johns. He has served on a number of boards and committees, including the Multnomah County Charter Review Committee (2021–22), charged with revising the county’s local constitution, and as 2nd Vice President of the Portland NAACP (2021–22), where he led work on housing, police, and environmental policies and programs. Scribes is an oft-requested speaker at college campuses and universities, government, and community organizations seeking creative and challenging conversations on history, narrative and justice. His work has been featured in USA Today, the Nation, FADER, FYI Network, and other publications. A fourth-generation Portlander, Scribes is committed to civic engagement, uplifting stories, and creatively shaping futures.
A graduate of Oregon Episcopal School, he also attended the HBCU Fisk University in Nashville, TN. He enjoys good music, good stories, and making an impact.
Encounters with Modernity:
Can we represent narratives of the past through movement?
Bend Contemporary Dance Company, featuring Sinnamon Hauser, in collaboration with COCC's Jessica Hammerman and Stephanie André
In this unique collaboration between history and dance, choreographer Sinnamon Hauser and Bend Contemporary Dance performed an original dance piece that explored the impact of 19th-century modernization on societies throughout the world.
After the performance, the choreographer engaged in a discussion with COCC faculty, Jessica Hammerman, Ph.D. and Stephanie André, to explore the stories of modern history and what can be communicated through dance.
Wednesday, March 13, 5:30-7 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Pinckney Auditorium in Pence Hall
An Evening with Author TJ Klune
Tuesday, April 9, 6 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Wille Hall, Coats Campus Center
Livestream also available
Award-winning and New York Times best-selling author TJ Klune
shared his story of being queer and neurodiverse while coming of age in rural Oregon
in the 90s as well as many other experiences that shaped
his life and his writings. Fantasy fiction author of The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more, Klune believes it’s important – now more than ever - to have accurate,
positive queer representation
in stories.
Student-Only Event
A Conversation with TJ Klune
Tuesday, April 9, noon-1 p.m.
COCC Bend Campus
Barber Library, West Wing Reading Room
Students were invited to join an informal conversation and Q&A with award-winning and New York Times best-selling author TJ Klune.