The College of Charleston’s Race and Social Justice Initiative will kick-off on March 1, 2016, with a talk by author, civil rights activist and children’s advocate Marian Wright Edelman.
The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the College’s Sottile Theatre, 44 George St. It is free and open to the public.
Marian Wright Edelman
Edelman is the founder and president of the Children’s Defense Fund and the recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, including the Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Prize, the Heinz Award, a MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Robert F. Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award.
A graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, Edelman was the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar and directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Miss.
The Race and Social Justice Initiative was launched in response to recent tragic events in the Charleston area, including the shooting death of Walter Scott by a police officer in April 2015 and the mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.
Funded by a major grant from Google, the initiative is a collaboration of the Avery Research Center, Addlestone Library, African American Studies, and the Lowcountry Digital History Initiative.
“We are approaching the first anniversaries of two violent shooting events in the cities of Charleston and North Charleston, South Carolina … Both made national headlines,” said Patricia Williams-Lessane, executive director of Avery Research Center. “These shootings intensified an already fever-pitch national debate about police brutality and race in America. We are most grateful to our partners and sponsors for providing the resources to make these crucial conversations happen.”
Edelman will be introduced by former N.C. Sen. Malcolm Graham, the brother of Cynthia Graham Hurd, one of the victims of the mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church. Hurd was a Charleston native who worked for the Charleston County Library and the College of Charleston for decades. The Measure of Our Success by Edelman was one of Hurd’s favorite books.
Edelman’s presentation is co-sponsored by the College of Charleston’s Race and Social Justice Initiative funded by Google, the Women’s Resource Project, Inc., the Charleston County Public Library, SunTrust, the SC Community Loan Fund, the Phillis Wheatley Literary and Social Club, and the Sophia Institute.
