Featured Speaker for the month of September: Robbie Shilliam, Professor of International Relations, Johns Hopkins University.

About the Lecture: “Thinking Through Fascism Today by Looking to the Past: From Mussolini’s Italy to Trump’s America” at Sharp Street Memorial Church. Political commentators and human rights advocates have often called Donald Trump’s policies and proclivities ‘fascist.’ Whether one agrees or disagrees depends, of course, upon how we define fascism. So what is fascism, and how does it threaten democracy? This talk will foster discussion on how communities of faith might address these questions by examining fascism in its original historical context. Using a Rastafari perspective, this talk explores the resistance by the African diaspora to Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia (1935- 1941). Come and learn about the roots of fascism and its challenge to global democracy while un-learning what you think you know about Rastafari – a biblically-based faith focused on spreading the virtues of universal peace, love, justice and rights.