Educational Panel
Thursday, January 29, 12:30 - 2:00 p.m.
Strafford Room, Memorial Union Building
"It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, proneness to adjust, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries."---Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Rap on Democracy: Culture, Power, and Social Change
The Education Panel will examine the radical implications of King's legacy for American democracy today. Dr. King recognized that the political and economic structure in the 1960s prevented groups from full participation in American life and that the political system itself had failed at a fundamental level to incorporate all of America's people in the democratic process. He moved outside of the mainstream to criticize the Vietnam War, and he planned the Poor People's March on Washington to confront the government with the reality of American economic inequality for all Americans. The panel will consider this radical legacy through the politics of rap, woman-centered politics at UNH, and political work in New Hampshire's legislature and in Nigeria's elections.
Panelist will discuss their work, thoughts, and ideas for 10 minutes before the floor is opened for a conversation with the audience.
Panel
Michael Eric Dyson is a prominent African American scholar known for his writings on hip hop and African American life and culture. To inform his biography on Martin Luther King Jr., Dyson employs a new genre of scholarly composition which he terms "bio-criticism," the fusion of social criticism and cultural criticism.
Professor Harvard Sitkoff, has been teaching at the University of New Hampshire since 1976. He is the author or editor of some ten books, including the enormously popular The Struggle for Black Equality 1954-1992, and, King: Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop.
The Honorable Jackie K. Weatherspoon has served as an elected official in the New Hampshire House of Representatives for six years. She has served as a Unh Secretariat since 2004 and has supervised elections, in Bosnia, Malaw, and Nigeria. Weatherspoon is the founder of Decision in Democracy International, a nonprofit organization that works to bring women from emerging democracies to the United States for training on how to run for office.
Cait Vaughan, a UNH student activist, is involved with the Women’s Union, the Black Student Union, and Friends of Forest Park. She is trained as a Safe Zones facilitator, has experience as an intern and HIV test counselor through AIDS Response Seacoast, and is a former member of Student Senate's Community Change Council.
Moderator
Reginald Wilburn, teaches in UNH Department of English
Facilitator
David H. Watters is a professor of English at UNH. He also teaches American Studies and American literature, focusing on the New England region and the Colonial era. He directs the Center for New England Culture, including its Black New England project, and he is the coeditor of the Encyclopedia of New England.
Reading Package
- - Beyond Vietnam, Martin Luther King, Jr. [pdf]"Beyond Vietnam," Speech given at Riverside Church Meeting, New York City, April 4, 1967.
- - "Give Me a Paper and Pen": Tupac's Place in Hip-Hop, Michael Eric Dyson [pdf]in The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2004), pp. 306-23.
- - Pilgrimage to the Mountaintop: chapter 8, Harvard Sitkoff [pdf](New York: Hill and Wang, 2007), Chapter 8.
- - Women’s Union [pdf], Publication by Women's Unions members
