Difficult Dialogues: Voices from the Valley is a public affairs show which aims to tackle some of the most pressing matters facing contemporary society. Since its inception in 2013, it has drawn on expert voices from the Fives Colleges, from Amherst, and from surrounding communities to explore issues including the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, immigration, challenges in the Middle East, and gender identity.
Initiated and hosted through 2015 by Mount Holyoke College President Lynn Pasquerella, the show is now hosted by Amilcar Shabazz, professor of history and Africana Studies in the W. E. B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass/Amherst, and Demetria Rougeaux Shabazz, assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Her work focuses on race and gender in media, and youth and civic engagement through the arts.
