To pay homage to the 45th Anniversary of Freedom Summer in his speech, "Race and News Coverage from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to Barack Obama," Charles E. Cobb will speak Thursday at Miami University.
Cobb, whose titles include journalist, civil rights activist, author, poet, internationalist and professor of African Studies at Brown University, is set to speak at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in 212 MacMillan Hall about the historic Freedom Summer and detail the progress of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.
Patricia Gallagher Newberry, journalism lecturer, is partly responsible for Cobb's appearance and said the speaker will talk about social matters with an "Obama spin."
"We want him to cover the continuum of journalism, paying special attention to race topics," Newberry said. "Given his experience, he can go back to the 1960s."
The Freedom Summer, which came to the Western College for Women, was a campaign launched in 1964 as an attempt to register African-American voters in Mississippi, which at the time had excluded black voters almost entirely.
Cobb's lecture, which is co-sponsored by the Diversity Affairs Council, is a part of a series of activities to pay homage to the historic civil rights event and Miami's contribution to it.
Junior Megan Garry, public director for the Diversity Affairs Council, said Cobb's lecture is important because it gives students insight into the historic event that forever shaped American culture.
"It is wonderful to have such a distinguished and knowledgeable intellectual such as Charles Cobb speak and present during this conference," Garry said. "His background will offer terrific insight into the civil rights movement, from past to present."
Cobb, author of On the Road To Freedom: A Guided Tour of the Civil Rights Trail, and senior writer and diplomatic correspondent for http://www.allAfrica.com, has long studied civil rights in the U.S. and abroad.
AllAfrica.com, which details news from across the continent, is a news source for information pertaining to internal African affairs, according to Garry, who is also co-president of Unified for UNIFAT, an organization dedicated to helping children of war-torn northern Uganda.
Newberry said the goal of the lecture "is that no student leave Miami without knowledge of Freedom Summer."
Cobb's speech will be open to the public.
