Civil rights activist, historian, writer, playwright and Boston University Professor Emeritus Howard Zinn will give a lecture titled ‘Bringing Democracy Alive,’ this afternoon at 4 p.m. on the ninth floor of the Photonics Center.
Zinn has been noted as one of the most influential writers of American political history and remains a legendary voice for social justice and equality in America, according to Christine Loken-Kim, program administrator of the African-American Studies Program.
Zinn’s lecture will be part of the African-American Studies Program’s ‘Blacks and Asians in the Making of the Modern World’ lecture series.
Having taught at southern black schools during the 1950s, at the height of the civil rights movement, Zinn, a World War II veteran, was part of the activist group SNCC, the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, Loken-Kim said.
‘Everything isn’t done yet,’ Loken-Kim said. ‘We are living in exciting times. Just because we aren’t in Alabama during the 1950s, with the glaring racial segregation, doesn’t mean that there aren’t things people still need to do and should be doing to ensure equal rights.
‘Professor Zinn, in his autobiography, looks at what happened [during the civil rights movement] through non-violence,’ Loken-Kim said, ‘and how those are the events that have created lasting change.
‘The problem in the U.S. is that a lot of us are pretty complacent, but you feel kind of ineffectual,’ she said.
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