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WEDU AND FLORIDA SOUTHERN COLLEGE PARTNER
TO HOST LECTURE INSPIRED BY NEW PBS SERIES 
"THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW" 
Lecture -Thursday, September 26 from 6 - 8 p.m. 
Television Series Airs - Tuesdays at 10 p.m., Beg. October 1

TAMPA, Fla., September 17, 2002 - WEDU and Florida Southern College in Lakeland will host a lecture and audience discussion entitled THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW on Thursday, September 26, 2002 from 6 - 8 p.m. at the Anne MacGregor Jenkins Recital Hall of the Robert A. Davis Performing Arts Center at Florida Southern College. 

The lecture is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture from 5 - 6 at the adjoining Honeyman Pavilion. The Polk County Supervisor of Elections office will also be conducting voter registration from 5 - 6 p.m. at the Honeyman Pavilion. Florida residents who are interested in registering to vote in the upcoming November elections can do so at this time. 

The lecture is inspired by the upcoming four-part PBS series THE RISE AND FALL OF JIM CROW, which will air on PBS station WEDU Tuesdays at 10 p.m., beginning October 1. The series repeats in its entirety on Sunday, October 27 from 3:00 - 7:00 p.m.

The PBS series chronicles one of the most brutal and oppressive eras in American history, spanning the years from the end of the Civil War to the start of the modern Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s - and beyond. During this time, large numbers of African Americans and a corps of influential black leaders bravely fought the status quo, acquiring the opportunities of education, business, land ownership and a true spirit of community. The series' chief revelation is the vast extent to which African Americans surpassed mere survival and victimization to create remarkable faith and activity within their communities.

The lecture and discussion will be moderated by Dr. Claudia S. Slate, Associate Professor of English at Florida Southern. Dr. Slate teaches composition and American Literature, specializing in Southern and African American literature. Her recent publications include Lessons Learned: Reading the African-American Women's Experience and Looking for the Glass Slipper in Jane Austen's Persuasion. Dr. Slate is an authority on Harriet Jacobs, the courageous author of a slave narrative considered to be one of the major works in African American literature. She is currently on sabbatical while she serves as project director for a symposium on Harriet Jacobs.

Lecture panelists will include:

Robert Saunders - A native of Tampa, Saunders served as Florida Field Director of the NAACP from 1952-1966, and was a leader in the Florida's Civil Rights Movement. In the mid 1970s he became Director of the Hillsborough County Equal Employment Opportunity Office.

Mary Alice Dorsett - Active in the Civil Rights Movement in Florida for most of her life, in 1965 Dorsett became the first black woman to run for the Florida House of Representatives and continues to be active in getting people out to vote. 

Dr. Marvin Davies - Dr. Davies marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in many cities and led Florida's Civil Rights Movement from 1963 - 1972. He served for seven years as Florida's Executive Director of the NAACP and was instrumental in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act in St. Augustine, Florida.

Carolyn Collins - Actively involved with the A&M University, she is the National President of the A&M University Alumni Association. Collins also serves on the Executive Board of the Tampa-Hillsborough NAACP.

PBS station WEDU is owned by the people of West Central Florida and exists through the direct financial support of the community. WEDU is the most-watched PBS station in the Southeast and among the top-ten most-watched PBS stations in the nation in primetime. The station strives to bring educational programming and services to the diverse audiences of the 17 counties it serves.

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