Manning Marable

African American scholar and author Manning Marable will be the keynote speaker for the annual Conversations on Race at Indiana University South Bend.

The 10th installment of the annual campus discussion on race, equity and society will begin with the lecture by Marable at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16, in Recital Hall (Room 158), Northside Hall.

Marable will discuss the last 10 years of race relations, where society is going in the future and if education is still important.

Following the talk, there will a question and answer period and a book signing.

The discussions with continue on Friday, Nov. 17, and Saturday, Nov. 18.

The Friday session, which is open to only high school students, will include a Youth Leadership Seminar beginning at 8:30 a.m. in Room 1001, Wiekamp Hall. "Play on Peace" will be at 11 a.m. in The Grille (the Administration Building cafeteria), followed by a rap session at 11:30 a.m. The play will be presented by members of the IU South Bend Civil Rights Center.

A number of discussions on race, global citizenship and immigration are scheduled from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, Nov. 17, in Wiekamp Hall.

The Saturday topics are: GLBT Discrimination, Global Citizenship – New Ways to Marginalize, Correcting the System of Unequal Justice, the Right to Health Care, Public Education, Community Centered Policing, Assessing Good Jobs, Wealth and Equality; and Teaching Diversity in the Classroom.

The event is sponsored by the Indiana University South Bend Offices of Campus Diversity, Academic Affairs, Student Services, Admissions and Alumni Affairs.

Since 1993, Marable has been a professor of public affairs and history at Columbia University, New York City. From 1993 to 2003, he was founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Under his leadership, the institute became a well-known center for scholarship on the black American experience.

Marable received his bachelor's degree from Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., and his Ph.D. in American history from the University of Maryland. Before Columbia University, he was the founding director of Colgate University's Africana and Latin American studies program; chair of the black studies department, Ohio State University and professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

A prolific author, Marable has written more than 275 articles in academic journals and edited volumes. He has written and/or edited nearly 20 books and scholarly anthologies.

Most recently, he wrote "Living Black History," a look at the legacy of the well-known figures of the civil rights movement. Also, he and Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers, have edited "The Autobiography of Medgar Evers." The book tells the story through his speeches, letters and papers.

Marable also co-wrote "Living Black History" with Evers-Williams, and "Medgar Evers: In his Own Words."

A comprehensive biography of African American leader Malcolm X, tentatively titled "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention," will be published later this year or early 2007.

For three decades Marable has written a political commentary series Along the Color Line. It appears in more than 400 newspapers and journals worldwide. He is regularly featured in national and international media.

Marable is a national leader in the development of Web-based educational resources on the African American experience. With Columbia's Center for New Media Teaching and Learning, he directed the production of two E-courses on W.E.B. DuBois and Malcolm X.

The lecture and discussions are sponsored by the Indiana University South Bend's Office of Campus Diversity, Academic Affairs, Student Services and Alumni Affairs.