Lecture Series in African American Studies

Presenter: Dr. Paul Finkelman
Location: McCool Hall, Room 130
Time: 4:00pm

President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy

Paul Finkelman is the President William McKinley Distinguished Professor of Law and Public Policy at Albany Law School, in Albany, New York. Before coming to Albany he held the Chapman Distinguished Professorship at the University of Tulsa College of Law, the John F. Seiberling Chair in Constitutional Law at the University of Akron, as well as chairs at Cleveland State University Law School and the University of Miami. He received his B.A. in American Studies from Syracuse University (1971), his Ph.D. in U.S. history from Chicago (1976), and was a fellow in law and humanities at Harvard Law School (1982-83).

Professor Finkelman is the editor of the The Political Lincoln: An Encyclopedia (2009) published by CQ Press and is an advisor to the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission. He is the author or editor of more than twenty-five books and more than one hundred and fifty scholarly articles on Abraham Lincoln, Constitutional law; American legal history; civil rights, civil liberties, race relations, freedom of religion and separation of church and state; the law of American slavery; Thomas Jefferson, the war on drugs; the electoral college; freedom of speech and press; the second amendment, American race relations, and baseball and law. His books include: Slavery and the Founders: Race and Liberty in the Age of Jefferson (M.E. Sharpe, 2001) Dred Scott v. Sandford: A Brief History (Bedford, 1995); Landmark Decisions of the United States Supreme Court (CQ Press, 2003); the Library of Congress Desk Reference to the Civil War (Simon and Schuster, 2002), American Legal History: Cases and Materials (Oxford, 3rd ed. 2004) and A March of Liberty: A Constitutional History of the United States (Oxford, 2002). His book A History of Michigan Law (2006) was awarded a prize as the best book of the year from the Michigan Historical Society. He has published articles in numerous law reviews and Justice John Paul Stevens cited his Fordham Law Review article on Ten Commandments monuments in Van Orden v. Perry (2005). He is the editor of the series Law, Society, and Politics in the Midwest with Ohio University Press, and the co-editor of Studies in the Legal History of the South at the University of Georgia Press.

He has held fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the American Bar Foundation, the Japan Society of the Promotion of Science, Yale University, Harvard Law School, the Gilder Lehrman Institute, and the Library of Congress. Professor Finkelman has lectured at more than 150 universities and public forums in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. He was an expert witness in the famous Alabama Ten Commandments Monument Case and was also an expert witness in the lawsuit over the ownership of Barry Bonds' 73rd Home Run Ball. He has published op-ed pieces in many papers, including the New York Times, USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He has appeared in a number television programs for PBS, the History Channel, C-Span, and in the movie Up For Grabs.

Presenter: Professor K.C. Morrison
Location: The Dawg House
Time: 2:00pm - 3:00pm

Minion Kenneth Chauncey "KC" Morrison is currently Professor and Head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Mississippi State University, where he is also a Senior Fellow in African American Studies. He was previously Frederick Middlebush Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri-Columbia (2005-2008). He held the position of Professor of Political Science at Missouri from 1989-2009. He held the position of Vice Provost for Minority Affairs and Faculty Development there from 1989 to 1997. Prior to holding the positions at Missouri, Morrison was Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University, where he served as the Chair of Afro-American Studies for five years. Before joining Syracuse he was at Hobart & William Smith Colleges in Geneva,New York and Tougaloo College in Mississippi, where he was involved variously in Political Science, Freshman Studies, Third World Studies and African and Afro-American Studies.

The educational training of KC Morrison includes a B. A. cum laude in Political Science at Tougaloo College (1968), and M. A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1977) in Political Science and African Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. During the undergraduate years Morrison participated in the Washington Semester Program at American University (DC), the Foreign Affairs Scholars Program as a Foreign Service intern at the State Department, and as a student leader in an African/Asian nation building study tour.

The professional pursuit of African Studies began for Morrison when he did his first fieldwork in Africa in 1968. Since then he has traveled widely over the African Continent, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Europe doing field work and consulting related to his research and teaching on African politics and society.

Though the professional work of Morrison was initially centered on African politics, he later expanded this to include the politics of Black America. His research, writings and teachings in this area have been concentrated on electoral politics in the South.

Morrison's publications have appeared in the two broad fields of African and Afro-American politics. Among these are several books: Race and Democracy in the Americas: Brazil and the United States (forthcoming); African Americans and Political Participation (2003); Black Political Mobilization, Leadership and Power (1987); Housing and Urban Poor in Africa (1982), edited with Peter Gutkind; and Ethnicity and Political Integration (1982). Also many articles and reviews have appeared in such journals as Polity, Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Publius, and American Political Science Review.

Morrison is active in the professional associations and numerous local community organizations. He is past President of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists, of the Columbia Commission on Cultural Affairs, and of the Missouri Humanities Council. Previously he served on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review.

Presenter: TBA
Location: TBA
Time: TBA

Sonia Sanchez is a poet, mother, activist, professor, and international lecturer on black culture and literature, women's liberation, peace and racial justice. A sponsor of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Sanchez is also a board member of MADRIE. She has written over 16 books, including: Homecoming; We a BaddDDD People; Love Poems; I've Been a Woman: New and Selected Poems; A Sound Investment and Other Stories; Homegirls and Handgrenades; Under A Soprano Sky; Wounded in the House of a Friend; Does Your House Have Lions?; Like the Singing Coming off the Drums; and most recently, Shake Loose My Skin.

Sanchez is contributing editor to Black Scholar and the Journal of African Studies. Additionally, she has edited two anthologies, We Be Word Sorcerers: 25 Stories by Black Americans and 360 Degrees of Blackness Coming at You. B.MA: The Sonia Sanchez Literary Review is the first African American journal that discusses the work of Sonia Sanchez and the Black Arts Movement.

The recipient of numerous awards, Ms. Sanchez has been honored with: the National Endowment for the Arts Lucretia Mott Award in 1984; the Outstanding Arts Award from the Pennsylvania Coalition of 100 Black Women; the Community Service Award from the National Black Caucus of State Legislators; the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Humanities for 1988; the Peace and Freedom Award from Women International League for Peace and Freedom for 1989; and a Pew Fellowship in the Arts for 1992-93.

Sanchez's exemplary writing skills have earned her the 1985 American Book Award for Homegirls and Handgrenades and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award in 1999. Does Your House Have Lions? was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She has received other prestigious honors, including the Poetry Society of America's 2001 Robert Frost Medal and was named a Ford Freedman Scholar from the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Her poetry was also featured in the movie, Love Jones.

Sonia Sanchez was the first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, where she held the Laura Carnell Chair in English.