FLORENCE-The Florence-Lauderdale Public Library is hosting a series “From Civil Rights to Now.” The programs will focus on events from the Civil Rights era and how they brought us to where we are now.
Freedom Riders: Film Screening and Discussion
hosted by Camille Goldston Bennett
Friday, February 6, 6:00 pm
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
FLPL is hosting a free screening and discussion of the PBS documentary Freedom Riders. Freedom Riders is the powerful, harrowing, and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever. From May until November 1961, more than 400 black and white Americans risked their lives—and many endured savage beatings and imprisonment—for simply traveling together on buses and trains as they journeyed through the Deep South. Deliberately violating Jim Crow laws, the Freedom Riders met with bitter racism and mob violence along the way, sorely testing their belief in nonviolent activism.
Discussion will be led by Camille Goldston Bennett, Minister of Living Spirit Church and co-coordinator of the Say Something Shoals movement, which seeks to spark discussion on race relations in the Shoals. For more information, call 256-764-6564, ext. 28.
Hank Klibanoff
The Past is Never Dead: Civil Rights Cold Cases and Why They Matter
with Hank Klibanoff, Pulitzer Prizer Winner
Thursday, February 12, 6:00 pm
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Hank Klibanoff will visit FLPL to talk about the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Case Project at Emory University. The project is both a college course and a website that investigates unsolved or unpunished racially-motivated murders that occurred in the state during the modern civil rights era.
Hank Klibanoff is the director and co-teacher for the Georgia Civil Rights Cold Case Project. A native of Alabama, Klibanoff joined Emory after more than 30 years as a reporter and editor at print and online newspapers in Mississippi and at The Boston Globe, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Klibanoff and co-author Gene Roberts won a Pulitzer Prize in history in 2007 for The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. For more information, call 256-764-6564, ext. 28.
A Long Struggle: The Black Freedom Struggle in the South and the Shoals
with Dr. Ansley Quiros
Tuesday, February 17, 11:30 am
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Dr. Ansley Quiros will present a general overview of the black freedom struggle in the American South while also highlighting the movement in the Shoals. She will consider the origins, major figures and events, and the phases of the movement, as well as raise questions about issues regarding the black freedom struggle in contemporary America. All are welcome and encouraged to bring questions, memories and stories.
Dr. Ansley Quiros is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Alabama. She has a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on the Civil Rights Movement, the history of the American South, African-American history, and oral history. For more information, call 256-764-6564, ext. 28.
Rosalie Turner
March With Me: The Children’s March and the Selma March
with author Rosalie Turner
Thursday, February 26, 6:00 pm
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
In May 1963, hundreds of children left their schools to march with Dr. Martin Luther King in Birmingham, AL. Some of the children walked from miles away, and many were hosed and arrested. Historical novelist Rosalie Turner decided to write about these children’s courage in her novel March with Me. Join us at the library as Ms. Turner shares her research on the Children’s March and discusses her book. She will also discuss what sparked the Selma to Montgomery March.
Award-winning author Rosalie T. Turner has been writing for over 28 years. March with Me won the Silver Award for best historical fiction with IndieFab Awards and was a finalist for the USA Best Book Award for multicultural fiction. It will also be used in thousands of schools across the country as part of the new Perspectives for a Diverse America curriculum through the Teaching Tolerance arm of the Southern Poverty Law Center. For more information, call 256-764-6564, ext. 28.
