History Department Hosts Panel Event Showcasing Community Partnerships
On November 19, 2025, the Trinity Christian College History Department hosted an event titled, “History for Community Organizing.” The event was born out of one of the pillars of Trinity’s Transformative Colleges Initiative (TCI): Partnership with neighbors for mutual good. The gathering served as a forum for exploring heightened collaboration between the historical profession and civic leaders with lived experience in local communities.
The program featured remarks from Acting President Jeanine Mozie and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Dean of Faculty, and Professor of History John Fry; a spoken word performance by Trinity alum Pastor CJ Gidron-Gee (’25); and a panel conversation moderated by Assistant Professor Sky Michael Johnston between Professor of History David Brodnax Sr., Rosemoor Community Association President LoLita Canady, and Learning Tree Founder De’Amon Harges. The event was attended by a mix of students, current and emeriti faculty, and local faith and community leaders who participated in a Q&A session to close the gathering. Two local reporters also covered the event and wrote the following articles for the Chicago Tribune and SRP Local News.
The event built upon previous work carried out at Trinity in partnership with others. Panelist De’Amon Harges brought his expertise in neighborhood leadership to Trinity where he came on staff to help strengthen the college’s neighborhood partnerships. LoLita Canady has hosted students at the Rosemoor Community Association via Trinity’s Cooperative Program which provides a paid internship, course credits, and experiential learning to students. Dr. Sky Michael Johnston led a visit to Rosemoor, a community on the Far South Side of Chicago, to introduce students to the history of the neighborhood. Dr. David Brodnax has taught the history of Chicago at Trinity for years.
The event was not merely a culmination of relationships that have been forged at Trinity, it also highlighted future work that has been planned as a grant application to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The grant project proposal is for a two-year program in which a panel of historians from across the country would work with civic leaders and community organizers in Chicago to design a curriculum that would be publicly accessible to colleges and universities. The guiding idea behind the project is that examining history together is the best way for historians and neighborhood leaders to understand the significance of the past for our communities today. That promise of that collaboration was on display at the November 19 event.
