FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE February 20, 1995

Symposium Honoring W.E.B. Du Bois To Be Held at UMass

A "Celebration of Learning" symposium honoring African-American scholar, Pan-Africanist, and social activist W.E.B. Du Bois will be held this Thursday, February 23, beginning at 11:15 a.m. in Room 163 in the Lincoln Campus Center. The symposium will observe the 127th anniversary of the birth of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Three members of the W.E.B. Du Bois Afro-American Studies Department, David Du Bois, William Strickland, and Michael Thelwell, will discuss the intellectual legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Following the speakers' presentations, a student donated plaque inscribed with a quote from W.E.B. Du Bois will be unveiled by the Graduate Student Senate and the W.E.B. Du Bois Petition Coalition. The bronze plaque will be installed in the courtyard of the University library which was named in honor of W.E.B. Du Bois last October 5 by the UMass Board of Trustees.

The student donated plaque reads as follows:

      "I still think today as yesterday that the color line
       is a great problem of this century.  But today I see
       more clearly than yesterday that back of the problem
       of race and color, lies a greater problem which both
       obscures and implements it:  and that is the fact that
       so many civilized persons are willing to live in
       comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance
       and disease of the majority of their fellowmen; that
       to maintain this privilege men have waged war until
       today war tends to become universal and continuous,
       and the excuse for this war continues largely to be
       color and race."

					-- W.E.B. Du Bois
					   "Fifty Years After," 1953,
					   Preface to the Jubilee Edition of
					   The Souls of Black Folk

For further information, contact Program Coordinator Vanessa Harris at (413) 545-2896.

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----- Submitted by: GSS@oitvms.oit.umass.edu Tue, 28 Feb 1995 21:20:30 -0500 .