The Diversity and Social Justice Project presents civil rights leader Bob Moses on Wednesday, April 19, at 4:10 p.m. in the Kirner-Johnson Auditorium. His remarks are titled "Social Justice in Education." Moses '56 is the creator of "The Algebra Project," a foundation devoted to assisting young students in the inner city and rural areas to achieve mathematics literacy. The event is free and open to the public.
After graduating from Hamilton, Moses studied philosophy at Harvard where he received his teaching certificate. He taught at the Horace Mann School in New York. In 1960, he became the field secretary for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In 1964, he became co-director of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), an umbrella organization for all the major civil rights groups working in Mississippi at the time. When Stokely Carmichael became SNCC president in 1966, the organization turned toward advocating black power, and Moses quit the group. He eventually returned to Harvard and completed a doctorate in philosophy, after which he taught high school math in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Moses began "The Algebra Project" in 1982 after receiving a MacArthur Fellowship. Among the other honors he has received are the War Resisters League Peace Award in 1997, the Heinz Award for the Human Condition in 2000 and The Nation/Puffin Prize for Creative Citizenship in 2001. He is co-author of the book, Radical Equations: Civil Rights from Mississippi to the Algebra Project (2002). He now teaches math at Lanier High School in Jackson, Miss.
Moses' presentation will be followed by a reception in Café Opus and an open house in the new Diversity and Social Justice Project offices. The talk, reception and open house are open to the public and free.
The Diversity and Social Justice Project is committed to social justice with a focus on issues of diversity. The project promotes the rigorous interdisciplinary intellectual activity necessary for social justice movements and characteristic of a liberal arts education.
For additional information about this program, call Janet Turvey at 315-859-4392 or e-mail jturvey@hamilton.edu.
