A Road Scholar program by Barbara Zeitz

This presentation is a close examination of women and civil rights through the lens of the law and court cases. Included for discussion is the Dred Scott case (1857), Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), and Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (1954), with special attention paid to the four independent cases combined with, and represented by, the more famous Brown case. Further material will be presented on women’s active roles in the Civil Rights Movement up to and during the 1960s and includes such celebrated women as Ida B. Wells, Pauli Murray, Rosa Parks, Jo Ann Robinson, and Fannie Lou Hamer.

Barbara Zeitz holds an MA from Roosevelt University in Women’s Studies/Law. She has worked extensively in the Literacy Volunteers English as a Second Language and External Diploma Programs at St. Charles Public Library, and currently writes an online women’s history column. She has presented public lectures on gender issues locally for the American Association of University Women, League of Women Voters, Older Women’s League, and Zonta International.

For more information contact Janine Cavicchia, Director, WIU Women’s Center, 309.298-2242.