UF faculty can talk about significance of landmark civil rights event
August 22, 2013
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Several University of Florida faculty are available to comment about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the landmark civil rights march in Washington, D.C.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was among the organizers of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington where about 250,000 people heard him deliver his “I have a dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Judith C. Russell, dean of University Libraries, said the march and speech remain special events in her life. She specifically remembers King speaking and Marian Anderson singing. She was a college student in D.C. and recalls the anxiety in the city and fear of violence beforehand, and the euphoric atmosphere afterwards.
She can be reached at 352-273-2505 or jcrussell@ufl.edu.
Sharon D. Wright Austin directs the African-American Studies program at UF. As an associate professor of political science, Austin’s research interests include African-American political behavior. She is arranging a Sept. 9 program at UF that will discuss the anniversary of the 1963 march, the anniversary of the emancipation proclamation and the Trayvon Martin Justice Movement.
She can be reached at 352-273-3060 or polssdw@ufl.edu.
Paul Ortiz, an associate professor history, directs the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, which has recorded interviews with people who participated in the march as well as in the broader civil rights movement. He also has done research into the economic justice component of the march.
He can be reached at 352-392-7168 or ortizprof@gmail.com
Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons is a senior lecturer in African and Religious Studies and is an affiliated faculty in Women Studies. During her early adult years, she was active with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and spent seven years working full time on voter registration and desegregation activities in Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
She can be reached at (cell) 352-262-5529 or zoharah@ufl.edu.