Event marks the beginning of Macomb’s “Brown v. Board 50 Years Later” programs.
CHICAGO— The Illinois Humanities Council (IHC) and the Honors College of Western Illinois University (WIU) will present “Separate But Equal,” on Wednesday, September 8, 2004 at 7:00p.m. in the Sandburg Theatre in WIU’s University Union (1 University Circle). This event is free and open to the public.
“Separate But Equal” tells the story of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the NAACP’s struggle to abolish segregation. Sidney Poitier stars as Thurgood Marshall, primary lawyer for the NAACP, and Burt Lancaster portrays John W. Davis, Marshall’s primary courtroom opponent.
In addition to this screening, WIU and the IHC will also host two more Brown-related events in Macomb this fall. On October 14,John Bracey, Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, will speak about the living conditions for African-Americans in Washington D.C., pre- and post-Brown. A prolific scholar of African-American history, Bracey is the former director of the W.E.B DuBois Archives at the University of Massachusetts. He was awarded the Zora Neale Hurston-Paul Robeson Award from the National Council for Black Studies for his outstanding contribution in establishing Afro-American studies programs nationwide.
On November 10, WIU and the IHC will present a screening and discussion with historian and lawyer, Jacqueline McLeod. Dr. McLeod will outline the strategy that lead up to the Brown case and she will discuss the people who carried out the litigation. Accompanying the lecture will be a screening of the film “The Road to Brown” which highlights the man who designed the NAACP’s litigation strategy, Charles Hamilton Houston.
All of these programs are free and open to the public. For more information on any of these programs, please call Martin Dupuis at 309.298.2228 or email him at md-dupuis@wiu.edu.
These events are part of “Brown v. Board 50 Years Later: Conversations on Integration, Race, and the Courts” — a free, year-long series of programs going on around Illinois from April 2004-May 2005. For more information about this series, please visit www.bvb50.org. or contact the IHC at 312.422.5580 or via email at ihc@prairie.org.
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