MLK Jr. Contemporaries Tell of Historic Role Fighting Discrimination
04/28/2015
Contacts: Nancy Cicco, 978-934-4944 or Nancy_Cicco@uml.edu and Christine Gillette, 978-934-2209 or Christine_Gillette@uml.edu
* M E D I A A D V I S O R Y *
Thursday, April 30, 4 p.m.
WHAT: Fifty years ago, Charles Cobb and Judy Richardson were demonstrating to outlaw discrimination during one of the most turbulent times in the nation’s history. As young Americans, they joined with more than 25,000 supporters and Martin Luther King Jr. to participate in the Selma to Montgomery marches and organized lunch counter sit-ins and other activism that galvanized public opinion and helped pressure lawmakers to enact civil and voting rights for all citizens.
Cobb and Richardson did this work as members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the only student-driven civil rights organization of the 1960s. The activists will talk about their experiences on the front lines of the movement and how such events transformed their lives during a free program for the public and UMass Lowell community.
Today, Cobb is an author and journalist who has worked for National Geographic and National Public Radio and is now a senior analyst at allAfrica.com. Richardson is a leading scholar with the SNCC Legacy Project and a filmmaker who worked on “Eyes on the Prize” – the acclaimed TV documentary that is considered one of the most powerful retellings of the civil rights movement – and other projects, including the film “Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968,” which details one of the most tragic events of the era.
Their visit to UMass Lowell is one of the highlights in a series of events that commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The programs are organized by UMass Lowell History Prof. Robert Forrant, whose students – from the university’s Honors College who hail from Bedford, Billerica, Brockton, Chelmsford, East Walpole, Groton, Lawrence, Lowell, Merrimac, Middleton, Saugus, Taunton, Waltham, Westford and West Newbury – are working to present these events and are participating in a range of related research and classroom projects.
WHERE: O’Leary Library Learning Commons, Room 222, South Campus, 61 Wilder St., Lowell. For directions and parking information, contact UMass Lowell media relations.