The Human Rights Program and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture welcome Carol Anderson (Associate Professor of African American Studies and History, Emory University) for the fifth lecture in a 2013-2014 series, “Hard Times: Black Appeals Local and Global.” Professor Anderson’s work focuses on the ways that domestic and international policies intersect the issues of race, justice and equality. Her lecture at the University of Chicago will explore “When the Levees Broke: A History of Un-Civil Rights in America.”

Tuesday, April 29, 2014: 4:30pm – 6:00pm (reception to follow)

Regenstein Library, Room 122

1100 East 57th Street

Chicago, Illinois 60637

Carol Anderson’s 2003 book, Eyes off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955 (Cambridge University Press) has served as an inspiration for international human rights activism on the part of African Americans and their allies. Today, U.S. advocates follow in the footsteps of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois and his contemporaries, who struggled in the post-World War II period to bring the condition of African Americans to international attention.

When Dr. DuBois sought co-authors for an NAACP petition (An Appeal to the World!) to the United Nations in 1947, he turned to two prominent Chicago attorneys: Earl B. Dickerson (the first African American graduate of the University of Chicago Law School) and William R. Ming, Jr. (the first African American professor at the U of C Law School). To honor Dickerson and Ming’s contributions to human rights advocacy, the Regenstein Library will transfer an original copy of An Appeal to the World! to Special Collections on the occasion of Carol Anderson’s lecture.

The “Hard Times: Black Appeals Local and Global” is a year-long lecture series to generate discussion about the history and future of human rights activism in the black diaspora and beyond. This project is part of the Human Rights Program’s “Human Rights at Home” initiative and is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture.

This event is free and open to the public. There will be a reception following Professor Anderson’s talk.  

Persons with disabilities who need an accommodation in order to participate in this event should contact Yaniv Kleinman at ykleinman@uchicago.edu or 773-702-1114 for assistance.Free via Skype