MEDIA ADVISORY
When – TUESDAY, MARCH 29, 2010
10:15 a.m.
Where – Boyd Chapel
Shaw University campus
118 E. South Street
Raleigh
CONTACT – Cash Michaels
919-650-2717
LOCAL SNCC LEADERSHIP ANNOUNCES "WE’LL NEVER TURN BACK" TOWN HALL/STUDENT MARCH
[RALEIGH] Against the backdrop of the recent Wake County School Board vote to end socioeconomic student diversity that could possibly usher in a new era of racial resegregation in public schools, Rev. Dr. David C. Forbes Sr., Senior pastor of Christian Faith Baptist Church in Raleigh, and one of the founding members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee fifty years ago in Raleigh, will invite the public, and especially young people, to take part in a historic town hall meeting and student march and rally, in honor of the SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference next month.
With the theme of "We’ll never turn back," the Local Host Committee of the SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference will sponsor the Town Hall Meeting with youth and community leaders at the Seby B. Jones Auditorium, St. Augustine’s College Campus in Raleigh, on Thursday, April 8 at 6 p.m. Not only will the history of SNCC be examined, but the need for student social activism today in the face of current political efforts to undo established civil rights gains, will also be discussed.
Then on Saturday, April 10 at 3 p.m. starting from the campus of Shaw University, the "SNCC 2.0" student march and rally through downtown Raleigh, not only commemorating the dramatic marches of college students who participated in the massive sit-in movement of the 1960s, but to denote a new generation of student social activism addressing the issues of today.
Both events are free, and open to the public.
Dr. Forbes will also give further details on the upcoming four-day SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference at Shaw University, April 15-18.
Over 1200 participants are expected to attend the SNCC conference from across the country, with such notables as civil rights icons and former SNCC leaders Julian Bond, Congressman John Lewis and former Wash.D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. Also attending will be activist entertainer Harry Belafonte, activist actor Danny Glover, and US Attorney Gen. Eric Holder will deliver a keynote address on Saturday, April 17.
SNCC was born at Shaw and the Raleigh Memorial Auditorium in April 1960, in the aftermath of the dramatic Feb. 1, 1960 Greensboro lunch counter sit-ins, which galvanized the national civil rights movement.
For more information about the SNCC 50th Anniversary Conference, go to http://sncc50thanniversary.org/index.html
-30-
