WASHINGTON – On Tuesday, April 21 at 6 p.m., the Howard University Department of Political Science invites all students to join a virtual town hall on COVID-19, the 2020 elections, and Black politics in the United States featuring former mayor or South Bend, Illinois and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. The town hall discussion will be accessible via Zoom. 

Chair of the Department of Political Science Ravi Perry, Ph.D., will moderate a conversation with Mayor Buttigieg to begin the town hall. The discussion will focus largely on issues impacting Black people living in the United States today. The second portion of the town hall is exclusively for Howard students to engage with Mayor Buttigieg through a question-answer period that will be conducted in real time. The virtual town hall is only open to students of Howard University. Information on how to access the town hall has been sent to all students via email.

Mayor Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of South Bend, Indiana between 2012 and 2020. In April 2019, Mayor Buttigieg announced candidacy in the 2020 U.S. presidential election as potentially the youngest and first openly gay president in American history. Buttigieg won the Iowa primary and emerged as a leading Democratic candidate. He suspended his campaign in March of 2020. He is a graduate of Harvard University as an Oxford Rhodes Scholar and served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

“We invite you to engage in the conversation with Mr. Buttigieg on the issues impacting Black people living in the United States,” Perry says. “During this time of controversy and challenge, let us come together as Bison and as the next generation of Black leaders to learn about policy solutions, inform Mr. Buttigieg of our experience, probe about government responsiveness to Black sociopolitical concerns, and cultivate our collective participation in the politics that defines the Black experience and this COVID-19 battle we are currently facing.”

For more information about the Department of Political Science, visit https://politicalscience.howard.edu or contact polisci@howard.edu. 

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About Howard University

Founded in 1867, Howard University is a private, research university that is comprised of 13 schools and colleges. Students pursue studies in more than 120 areas leading to undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees. The University operates with a commitment to Excellence in Truth and Service and has produced one Schwarzman Scholar, three Marshall Scholars, four Rhodes Scholars, 11 Truman Scholars, 25 Pickering Fellows and more than 70 Fulbright Scholars. Howard also produces more on-campus African-American Ph.D. recipients than any other university in the United States. For more information on Howard University, visit www.howard.edu.

Media contact: Ramzey Smith, Office of University Communications, ramzey.smith@howard.edu