The Coolidge Room in Tufts’ Ballou Hall is a grand Victorian space (1853-4) characterized by unusual free-standing columns of cast iron, thick patterned carpets, potted plants, and oil portraits of the Tufts presidents on the walls. Like any constructed place, it conveys cultural significance–and its meanings are perhaps complex and various–but overall, those hushed old white men on the walls do seem to dominate.

On Saturday, that space was filled with the voice of Professor Sonia Sanchez. I don’t know if her remarks were recorded, but this event at Georgetown gives a flavor of them. She argues, she cites information, she quotes, she analyzes, she remembers, she calls and awaits responses, she echoes and rhymes, she ululates, she sings, she exhorts, she weeps, she laughs.