BROWN LECTURE IS FEB. 11 AT ODU

Political activist/commentator Robert Brown will address "The Struggles and Promise of the Brown Decision: Radicalism and the Civil Rights Movement" at noon Wednesday, Feb. 11, in the Burgess Room, 921, of the Batten Arts and Letters Building.

Brown's talk, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Old Dominion University.

An intellectual and frequent lecturer, Brown gained his understanding and experience in politics and social movements through the hard lessons of the successes and failures of the Civil Rights and the Black Power movements.

He was involved in the Civil Rights movement since 1963, beginning as an organizer for the Chicago chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Inspired by the work of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others, Brown became an organizer and director of Midwest office for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). SNCC was known for its sit-ins, voter rights activities and strong advocacy of civil rights. Noted Civil Rights movement author Clayborne Carson, in his book "In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awareness of the 1960s," credits Brown with efforts to revitalize SNCC activities in Chicago. SNCC was a strong supporter and sometime critic of the old guard civil rights leadership in the 1960s.

Brown has continued a diligent advocacy for human rights and Pan-Africanism. He has also continued to work, study and write on issues of importance to Africans at home and abroad, Latin American politics, the Middle East and Europe. He served as national coordinator of logistics and operations for the Million Man March and Stay-at-Home Campaign in 1995. He served as coordinator of the National Black United Front's Project on Human Rights and Genocide and attended the United Nations conference on Racism in South Africa. Additionally, he has been a political consultant to Jesse Jackson, former Sen. Carol Mosely-Braun and the late Mayor Harold Washington

Currently, Brown is working on several books, including volumes on Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) and the reparations movement. He has spoken at numerous colleges and universities on a variety of topics and he has been interviewed by many media outlets, including C-SPAN.

The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, call 683-5586.