Center for Social Justice 2005-2006
Theme for the Year: Civil Rights

The Center for Social Justice in the School of Arts and Humanities offers students the opportunity to study issues of social justice from interdisciplinary perspectives, with particular attention to the ways they are expressed through the arts.

Each year a complex subject with wide-ranging impact on the well-being of U.S. society is examined through coursework, research, and a supplementary program of events, open to the public, which broadens the discourse beyond the confines of the campus to include the community at large. The topic for 2004-2005 was capital punishment.

The theme for the Center’s second year of operation, 2005-2006 is Civil Rights. The fall semester will focus on the struggle of African Americans for civil  rights and the wide ranging legacy of this struggle to contemporary society. The spring 2006 semester focus will be on the struggle of Latinos to establish their rights as citizens alongside all others.

In conjunction with this year's topic we are proud to present the stage performance of Dr. Clayborne Carson’s  “Passages of Martin Luther King”. Dr. Carson, editor of the King papers and director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, based his play entirely on King’s speeches and writings as well as the statements of those closest to Dr. King. Full info on the NDNU Theatre production of “Passages of Martin Luther King”.

Spring 2006 Events

The following events are scheduled for Spring semester 2006. The public is warmly welcomed to attend. Final details for some events will be announced as they become available.

Jan. 15: Staged Reading of excerpts from Passages of Martin Luther King by Clayborne Carson. Stanford Memorial Church, 12 noon. (approx.45 mins.)

Countdown to Eternity. An exhibit in Wiegand Gallery of 78 photographs of Dr. Martin Luther King taken during the year before his assassination. It provides an historic view of the pivotal events of Dr. King's last year and of the civil rights leaders instrumental in the movement.

Jan. 19: Rose Guilbault - Distinguished Speaker of the School for Business and Management, at 7.30 pm Ralston Ballroom followed by reception. "From the Fields to the Executive Floor: Lessons Learned by a Farmworker's Daughter."

Jan. 23: Awele Makeba. Performance of Rage is Not a 1-Day Thing, NDNU Theatre at 7.30 pm. Based on the events leading up to the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

February: Black Student Union Weekly Guest Speakers for Black History Month TBA.

Feb. 14: Jane Bond Moore, J.D. "Black, Brown and Yellow: Encounters with the Constitution and School Desegregation." 2:00-3:30 pm Wiegand Gallery.

Feb.23 / 21 Hawaiian Sovereignty: Lecture.

March 21: Lecture on Cesar Chavez by Sr. Pat McGlinn, 7.30 pm Ralston Hall.

March 23-April 2: Fiddler on the Roof, NDNU Theatre Arts Department Spring musical, NDNU Theatre.

April 1-9: Hawaiian Cultural Week.

Students interested in building up a portfolio of activities in social justice may take an interdisciplinary minor in Social Justice Studies.