UA’s Gladney Lecture to Commemorate 50th Anniversary of Montgomery Bus Boycott

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The 2006 University of Alabama Rose Gladney Lecture on Justice and Social Change will feature guest speaker and activist Kathleen Cleaver on Monday, Dec. 4 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Cleaver will discuss “The Alabama Human Rights Struggle and Rosa Parks” at 7:30 p.m. in the AIME Building on campus.

The lecture will be followed by a reception and book signing.

The annual event is sponsored by the UA College of Arts and Sciences, African-American studies program, New College and the departments of American studies, history and women’s studies.

Cleaver, a major voice in the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960s and 70s, continues today to speak out against racism, sexism and economic inequality. In 1966, Cleaver first became active in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee. From 1967-1971, she was the communications secretary of the Black Panther Party and the first woman member of its central committee.

After sharing years of exile with her former husband Eldridge Cleaver, she returned to the United States in late 1975. Since graduating from Yale Law School in 1987, Cleaver has combined legal work, teaching and activism. She served on the Georgia Supreme Court Commission on Racial and Ethnic Bias in the Courts and became a board member of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights.

Cleaver currently teaches law at Emory and Yale Universities.

The Rose Gladney Lecture for Justice and Social Change was founded in 2003 to honor the work and commitments of Margaret Rose Gladney at her retirement from the University and to increase the connections between UA and the Tuscaloosa area community.