Dr. Sarah Lewis

Founder, Vision & Justice; John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies, Harvard University

Sarah Lewis, founder of Vision & Justice, is currently the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities and Associate Professor of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is an award-winning art and cultural historian whose books and edited volumes include The Rise (2014), Vision & Justice by Aperture (2016), Carrie Mae Weems (2021), The Unseen Truth (2024), and Vision & Justice (One World / Random House, 2026). Her work has been published and profiled in outlets from The New York Times to the New York Review of Books. A sought-after public speaker, her mainstage TED talk received over 3 million views. Awards and recognition for her work include an honorary degree from Pratt Institute, the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship, the Infinity Award, the Freedom Scholar Award from the Association for the Study of African American Life and History, the Danto/ASA Prize from the American Philosophical Association, and the Walter Channing Cabot Fellowship at Harvard.

Speaker sessions

Welcome Remarks

Portraits and Resistance

Art and Power

Fireside Chat

Art, Archiving, and the Democratic Imagination

Fireside Chat

Speaker awards

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Other speakers

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Deborah Archer

Firelei Báez

Dr. Uché Blackstock

Charles M. Blow

Mark Bradford

Dr. Joy Buolamwini

Dr. Chelsea Clinton

Dean Jelani Cobb

Dr. Huey Copeland

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Elijah DeVaughn

Dr. Leah Dickerman

Summer Durant

Ava DuVernay

Dr. Paul Farber

Dr. P. Gabrielle Foreman

Anthony Foxx

LaToya Ruby Frazier

Theaster Gates

Lee Gelernt

Tenzin Gund-Morrow

Dr. Mona Hanna

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Dr. Carla Hayden

Sherrilyn Ifill

Vijay Iyer

Dr. Martha S. Jones

Florian Koenigsberger

Jennifer Koh

Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

John Legend

Glenn Ligon

Audra McDonald

Tyler Mitchell

Dr. Leigh Raiford

Sandy Rodriguez

Adam Serwer

Yara Shahidi

Amy Sherald

Coreen Simpson

Bryan Stevenson

Dr. Latanya Sweeney

Hank Willis Thomas

Dr. Salamishah Tillet

Darren Walker

Carrie Mae Weems

Dr. Deborah Willis

Deborah Archer

Firelei Báez

Dr. Uché Blackstock

Charles M. Blow

Mark Bradford

Dr. Joy Buolamwini

Dr. Chelsea Clinton

Dean Jelani Cobb

Dr. Huey Copeland

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Elijah DeVaughn

Dr. Leah Dickerman

Summer Durant

Ava DuVernay

Dr. Paul Farber

Dr. P. Gabrielle Foreman

Anthony Foxx

LaToya Ruby Frazier

Theaster Gates

Lee Gelernt

Tenzin Gund-Morrow

Dr. Mona Hanna

Nikole Hannah-Jones

Dr. Carla Hayden

Sherrilyn Ifill

Vijay Iyer

Dr. Martha S. Jones

Florian Koenigsberger

Jennifer Koh

Peter W. Kunhardt, Jr.

John Legend

Dr. Sarah Lewis

Glenn Ligon

Audra McDonald

Tyler Mitchell

Dr. Leigh Raiford

Sandy Rodriguez

Adam Serwer

Yara Shahidi

Amy Sherald

Coreen Simpson

Bryan Stevenson

Dr. Latanya Sweeney

Hank Willis Thomas

Dr. Salamishah Tillet

Darren Walker

Carrie Mae Weems

Dr. Deborah Willis