AAHRC is honored to welcome Dr. Melanye Price as the 2025 George Floyd Memorial Lecturer. Dr. Price is the director of The Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice at Prairie View A&M University, where she holds an Endowed Professorship in Political Science and leads the university's African American Studies Initiative. An accomplished author and political commentator, Price has provided expert analysis for numerous media outlets across the United States. Her published works include The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the Political Uses of Race (2016) and Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African American Public Opinion (2010).

After George Floyd’s murder, HPL launched the Race and Social Justice digital project to capture the thoughts and feelings of our communities regarding police brutality, socio-political activism, and criminal justice reform. Building upon the success of that project, AAHRC launched the George Floyd Memorial Lecture Series in 2022. This annual event is dedicated to exploring the aforementioned issues from various perspectives as they relate to Black lived experiences in Houston and the surrounding areas.