Local CCCC Events

There are many new features and events at CCCC this year. Below are descriptions for some of the highlights and local events you should plan to check out while in town for the conference.
​About That: Prescription
  • On Thursday, March 26, 6-8:30 p.m., stop by The Retreat for a conversation about the dark history and modern efforts of medical experiments and health disparities. The discussion is inspired by visiting author Megan Giddings and her novel, Lakewood. About That is a conversation series inspired by new local works of art. From film to fiction, animation to visual art, About That frames the relevant discussions intersecting our lives. Aging. Gentrification. Consent. Sensuality. Respectability politics. Masculinity. And more. Moderated by Dasha Kelly Hamilton, the About That events don't feature a panel, but conversation kickstarters who each open each discussion with 3-5 minutes of anecdote, analysis or attitude. From there, the conversations are based on whatever the room has to say ABOUT THAT.
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Big Truckin’ Food Fair
  • ​ The Friday night social event is a longstanding Cs tradition.  This year, as before, we will indeed gather on Friday evening (7:30-9:30 p.m.) to celebrate, confabulate, and let down a little. In a departure from Cs tradition, we’ve organized a street festival, with entertainment, food trucks, games, and general festivity.  Since Milwaukee is a city famous for its summer festivals, we’ve planned our own festival for 4C20. But since March in Milwaukee is not, so much, summer, we’ve organized this as a (mostly) indoor event: you can purchase a meal at one of the highly acclaimed local food trucks featuring an array of food choices (plant-based options, various local/ethnic cuisines, and dessert items) parked along Wisconsin Avenue, right between the Hilton and the Wisconsin Center.  Then you can wander with your delectables back inside to the Wisconsin Center atrium to eat, grab a drink from the cash bar, groove to the distinctive sounds of local Milwaukee R&B/soul/jazz duo Sista Strings, and delight in the art of Milwaukee’s Poet Laureate Dasha Kelly Hamilton. Stop by for delicious food from these local vendors:
        Twisted Plants 
        Marco Pollo
        Hidden Kitchen
        Foxfire
        Cupcake-a-Rhee
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CCCC 2020 Documentarians
  • The Documentarians role is new for CCCC this year, and it is very much in the spirit of conference as space of learning for those who attend.  This new role was inaugurated for two reasons: One, to give you the opportunity to write and about and share your experience of the conference so that we can learn more about what you, as you, find most valuable about the conference. From the collected work of the 2020 Documentarians, we hope to learn about diverse ways to experience CCCC. And two, to give members of the Cs community yet another opportunity—in a role not contingent on space constraints!—for participating in and contributing to the conference.  CCCC 2020 Documentarians will document what they see and do as they move through the convention, reflect on these experiences each day and at the end of our time together.  If you’re serving as a Documentarian this year, please join us for a Documentarians Reception on Wednesday evening for snacks, introductions, and a general celebration of the work.
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​Commonplace Collection Kiosks and Common Grounds Pop-Up Coffee Houses
  • ​ In order to keep the conversation about commonplaces alive in our common spaces, we’ve set up corkboards (Commonplace Collection Kiosks) that invite you to record and post commonplaces you’d especially like to discuss with your fellow Cs-goers.  Grab a notecard, record a commonplace of interest to you, and post it to one of the boards available in the lobbies of the Wisconsin Center, Hilton, and Hyatt.  Then, grab a card (your own, or somebody else’s) and take it with you to one of our Common Grounds pop-up coffee houses you’ll find in one of these spaces, where you can enjoy a cup of coffee for the price of a conversation.
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Conference Planner Zine
  • ​ In the general spirit of projecting, collecting, and reflecting on your experiences at CCCC 2020, we’ve included a print planner (designed by Lauren Brentnell) in the form of a zine. This planner (which you’ll find along the materials you pick up at Registration), is an artifact designed for you not only to take notes on things you see and hear, but also to record your plans, goals, and expectations for each day and for the Cs experience as a whole.  
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​Featured Speaker
  • In 2020, we will continue the conversation about race, education, and trauma that defined the mission of the 2018 convention, a conversation that continued to animate CCCC 2019. Our Featured speaker for 2020 is Howard Stevenson, Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education and Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences that Make a Difference. On Friday morning, Professor Stevenson will give a featured talk (G Session) followed by a workshop (H Session). Stevenson’s curriculum for developing racial literacy – for teaching a set of competencies for living and surviving in a world of traumatic racialized encounters – as an approach that is all too relevant to our times, and one that stands to enrich our practices as literacy educators.

Locally-operated Bus Tours of Milwaukee Neighborhoods
  • The Local Arrangements Committee (LAC), working in collaboration with the Social Justice Action Committee (SJAC), has arranged (with Adam Carr, Deputy Editor for Community Engagement at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service) for a local experience for those who wish to learn more about the history and institutions of Milwaukee’s Black and Latinx communities and neighborhoods. You can visit these communities via two narrated bus tours run by members of these communities on Wednesday, March 25th  4:30 - 6:30 (Northside), and Saturday, March 28, 11:30-1:00 (Southside). Each tour can be purchased for $35 (exclusive of meals) along with Registration; your contribution helps to support the local business owners and artists you’ll meet along the way.

​Tour #1: Northside of MKE
Wednesday, March 25th 5:00pm-7:00pm
  • 5:00pm: Depart
    • Welcome, introduction to tour guide and tour topic
    • Establish roots of Milwaukee's North Side, from Great Migration through Bronzeville
  • 5:10pm: “We Got This” with Andre Lee Ellis
    • Discuss origins of “We Got This” and why it was needed
    • What’s been the evolution of the program and needs of young men
  • 5:30pm: Depart
    • Discussion of historical urban renewal projects, highway construction, deindustrialization
    • Introduce Walnut Way and the propagation of urban agriculture & community development
  • 5:40pm: Alice’s Garden & youth guides from Neu-Life Community Development
    • Narrative from Neu-Life youth guides about garden and neighborhood
    • Discussion of land use over time, including Underground Railroad, black community, Park West
  • 5:50pm: Depart
  • 5:50pm: Sherman Rising with Camille Mays
    • Develop what was taking place in Sherman Park before uprising
    • What took place with Sylville Smith and in immediate aftermath
    • Since, how has re-development looked?
  • 6:10pm: Arrive at Sherman Phoenix 
    • Discussion of Sherman Phoenix’s story
    • Time for group to get dinner
  • 6:40pm: Depart
  • 7:00pm: Arrive at Convention Center

Tour #2: Southside of MKE
Saturday, March 28th 11:30am-1:00pm
  • 11:30am: Depart
    • Welcome, introduction to tour guide and tour topic
    • Establish roots of Milwaukee’s South Side, from Pfister & Vogel through Walker’s Point
  • 11:40am: Pfister & Vogel story
    • Story of the “Los Primeros” and first Mexican workers coming to Milwaukee
    • Establish boundaries of redlining and impact on neighborhood
  • 11:50am: Walker’s Point Center for the Arts & Xela Garcia
    • Learn about the art center’s background and it’s role in the community’s development
    • Address how gentrification has impacted the neighborhood
  • 12:15pm: Depart
  • 12:20pm: Esperanza Unida mural 
    • Story of Reynaldo Hernandez and mural throughout Milwaukee
    • Discuss potential of “cultural violence” and clumsiness of “well meaning development”
  • 12:25pm: Zocalo 
    • Meet Jesus Gonzalez and learn his story of starting business in the neighborhood
    • Eat charolas of tacos
  • 12:50pm: Depart
  • 1:00pm: Arrive at Convention Center

Native Vendors
  • ​Members of the American Indian Caucus have worked in collaboration with the local arrangements committee to bring several local Native vendors to the conference. Be sure to check out works from Lynn Cook, Diana Porter, and Catherine Thomas in the exhibit hall while attending the conference. ​
 
SJAC Poetry Events
  • This year’s convention features three opportunities for you to hear poetry and to perform your own. 
    • On Wednesday evening, you’re invited to show your stuff at a poetry slam off-site at The Retreat, 2215 N. Martin Luther King Dr. The Harambee Poetry Slam is held every fourth Wednesday at The Retreat. Doors and sign up list open at 7pm. Slam begins at 7:30. Participants must have three original poems, three minutes or less and be at least 18 years old. Winning poet wins $100! ​
    • There will be a Poetry slam in Atrium of the Wisconsin Center on Friday from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. featuring local poets (1:00-2:00) and CCCC attendees who have signed up in advance (2:00-300).
    • On Friday, there will be an open mic (7:00-7:30 p.m.) for you to share a reading of a poem or other short piece at the Big Truckin’ Food Fair, right before music duo Sista Strings and poet Dasha Hamilton take the stage.  
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SJAC Session: Beyond Matthew Desmond's Evicted: Fighting for Social Justice in Milwaukee
  • ​​ Join Milwaukee activists (Donte McFadden, Co-Programmer, Black Lens at the Milwaukee Film Festival, Katherine Wilson, Executive Director, Frank Zeidler Center for Public Discussion, and Keith Stanley, Executive Director, Near West Side Partners) for an interactive roundtable discussion about the economic, legal, social, and political issues (housing and neighborhood revitalization, race and representation, fostering critical and equitable civic dialogue) described in Wisconsin author Matthew Desmond’s Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.  This session, sponsored by the Social Justice Action Committee and chaired by Maria Novotny and Adam Carr, is aimed at attendees who have used or will use Desmond’s text in university common-reading programs as well as all attendees committed to community-engaged teaching and learning.  

Think Mobs
  • ​As a discipline, we share certain commonplaces of knowledge and practice—but as, we all know, local institutions have their own commonplaces of intellectual and practical activity. To open opportunities for further conversations about commonplaces of work, practice, and professional life, we’ve arranged pop-up discussion groups in locations on- and off-site.  Come meet your colleagues from other places and find out how our commonplaces are expressed locally. Keep an eye on the website for more information about times and places.