CBFS: New Perspectives on the Life & Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

ONLINE PROGRAM

Regrister at : 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cbfs-new-perspectives-on-the-life-legacy-of-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-tickets-774463470087

Date : Jan 4th 

 Journalist Jonathan Eig (King: A Life), University of Florida professor and former field director of SNCC's Mississippi Freedom Summer Project Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons, and political scientist Brandon M. Terry (To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr.) offer new perspectives on life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the range of his political thought, the myths that have developed about him, and what his legacy offers us today.

 PANELISTS 

Jonathan Eig Jonathan Eig is the bestselling author of six books, including his most recent King: A Life, which The New York Times hailed as a "monumental" new biography of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Eig’s previous book, Ali: A Life, won a 2018 PEN America Literary Award and was a finalist for the Mark Lynton History Prize. His works have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

He began his writing career at age 16, working for his hometown newspaper, The Rockland County (N.Y.) Journal News, studied journalism at Northwestern University, and went on to work as a reporter for The New Orleans Times-Picayune, The Dallas Morning News, Chicago Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal.

Eig has appeared on the Today Show, NPR's Fresh Air, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. But his greatest claim to fame, according to his parents, is that his name once appeared in a Jeopardy question (which was solved correctly for $200).

He lives in Chicago with his wife and children and shares office space with the laundry machines.

Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons | University of Florida Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is currently an Assistant Professor of Religion and affiliated faculty in the Women Studies Department. Simmons received her BA from Antioch University in Human Services and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Religion with a specific focus on Islam from Temple University as well as a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. Simmons’ primary academic focus in Islam is on the Shari’ah (Islamic Law) and its impact on Muslim women, contemporarily. Simmons spent two years (1996-1998) living and conducting dissertation research in the Middle East countries of Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria. The areas of focus for her teaching at this time include Islam, Women, Religion and Society; Women and Islam, African American Religious Traditions, and Race, Religion, and Rebellion.In addition to her academic studies in Islam, Simmons was a disciple in Sufism (the mystical stream in Islam) for 17 (1971-1986) under the guidance of Sheikh Muhammad Raheem Bawa Muhaiyadeen, a Sufi Mystic from Sri Lanka, until his passing. She remains an active member of the Bawa Muhaiyadeen Fellowship and Mosque and student of this great Saint’s teachings.

Simmons has a long history in the area of civil rights, human rights and peace work. She was on the staff of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker peace, justice, human rights and international development organization headquartered in Philadelphia, Pa. for 23 years. During her early adult years as a college student and thereafter, she was active with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and spent seven years working full time on Voter Registration and desegregation activities in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960′s.

Brandon M. Terry | Harvard University Brandon M. Terry is the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and the co-director of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. In addition to these main appointments, Brandon is a Faculty Affiliate of American Studies, Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and the Center for History and Economics.

Terry earned a PhD with distinction in Political Science and African American Studies from Yale University, an MSc in Political Theory Research as a Michael von Clemm Fellow at Corpus Christi College at the University of Oxford, and an AB, magna cum laude, in Government and African and African American Studies from Harvard College.

A scholar of African American political thought, Terry is the editor, with Tommie Shelby, of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. (Harvard University Press, 2018) and the editor of Fifty Years Since MLK (Boston Review/MIT 2018).

He has published work in Modern Intellectual History, Political Theory, The New York Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston Review, Dissent, The Point, and New Labor Forum. For his work, Terry has received fellowships, awards, and recognition from the Edmund J. Safra Center for Ethics, the Center for History and Economics, the Ford Foundation, the Mellon-Mays Foundation, the American Political Science Association, the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, and Best American Essays.

 ABOUT CONVERSATIONS IN BLACK FREEDOM STUDIES | 

The founding curators of this series, Professors Jeanne Theoharis (Brooklyn College/CUNY) and Komozi Woodard (Sarah Lawrence College), introduced a new paradigm that challenged the older geography, leadership, ideology, culture and chronology of Civil Rights historiography. Jeanne Theoharis continues in her role and is joined by Robyn C. Spencer-Antoine (Wayne State University) ) as co-curator. Komozi Woodard continues to advise the series from an emeritus position. Discussions take place on the first Thursday of each month.

Learn more: http://www.blackfreedomstudies.org

PRESS | Please send all press inquiries (photo, video, interviews, audio-recording, etc) at least 24-hours before the day of the program to Leah Drayton at leahdrayton@nypl.org. Please note that professional video recordings are prohibited without expressed consent.

Conversations in Black Freedom Studies is supported by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. Additional support provided by Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation.

Assistive Listening and ASL

ASL interpretation and real-time (CART) captioning available upon request. Please submit your request at least two weeks in advance by emailing accessibility@nypl.org.