June 28, 2007

Troy University to host Civil Rights Education Summit

MONTGOMERY – Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum will be the site of a new summit to examine the Civil Rights Movement and its implications for the future.

The Civil Rights Education Summit, scheduled for Aug. 1 -3, will strive to education and inform 200 participants of the history and context of civil rights in America and in the Montgomery area. Outside scholars and speakers will provide a national and global civil rights perspective on civil rights history and issues.
 
“Using the Past to Reshape the Future” is the Summit’s theme, chosen to create a forum for public intellectual exchange and innovation by forming an interdisciplinary perspective on reshaping how the past is studied and presented. The Summit is co-sponsored by the Alabama Humanities Foundation, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the Alabama Criminal Justice Foundation, Auburn University’s College of Liberal Arts Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
 
“When President Clinton created the Initiative on Race in 1997, he asked the question ‘can we be one America in the 21st century?’,” said Rosa Parks Museum director Georgette Norma. “I think we can, but not without work. We just can’t want it to be or wish it to be, rather, we must take responsibility to make it so.”
 
The forum, she said, is a step toward that goal.
 
“Over the last 50 years, our eyes have been opened to the injustices done and the inequities that exits. It is my hope that the Summit helps bring some clarity to that which we see so that we can begin the process of redress through honest dialog void of guilt and blame,” Norman said.
 
The Summit opens Aug. 1 with a pre-conference for teachers in grades 4 – 12, focusing on the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama and facilitated by the Alabama Department of Archives and History and the Alabama Department of Education. A follow-up session for teachers will take place in December.
 
Among the lecturers presenting at the session is Howard Dodson, chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library and co-author of six books on African-America history, culture and ideology.
 
The Schomburg Center is the largest historical archive in the world about people of African descent. Its holdings include everything from the ashes of poet Langston Hughes to musical scores penned by Nat King Cole to the legal papers of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Dodson has been chief of the Center since 1984.
 
“In his book ‘In Motion,’ he brings out this idea of being able to clarify ourselves to ourselves and others, and move on so that we are not mired in the past, but use the past as a way to move forward,” Norman said.
 
Other presenters include Demetrius Eudell, Deborah Menkart, Beverly LeMay, Judy Richardson, Denise Gabriel, Carole Blair, Carol Zippert, Laura Anderson, Keith Walker, Emily Vickery, Susan Williams, Pat Clark, Horace Huntley, Wayne Coleman and Susan Glisson.
 
“With more clarity, we hopefully will see that we are all woven into the same tapestry -- one cloth of different colors and persuasions -- and begin to act on the true possibility, probability and the ‘can be’s; so that we have a future of inclusion in one America,” Norman added.
 
The Summit is free and open to the public, but only 200 may attend. Norman said people wishing to attend the session should call the Rosa Parks Museum to pre-register in order to ensure their participation. Troy University’s Rosa Parks Museum and Library, located at 252 Montgomery Street, may be reached by calling 334-241-8608. Continuing Education Units are also available for attending the Summit.
 
Additional information can be found online at http://montgomery.troy.edu/rosaparks/museum/summit.html.
 

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