Presidential Lecture Series

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  Eddie Knowles - Vice President for student life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

  Wright State University

  Talent, Opportunity, and Career Paths for African American Men

  EDDIE ADE KNOWLES is vice president for student life at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he is respected as an expert and experienced leader in student life administration, as well as a committed advocate for student life. Prior to his appointment in April 2001, he served as Rensselaer’s dean of students for 18 years. Dr. Knowles joined Rensselaer—the nation’s oldest technological university—as assistant dean of students in 1977, and became the Institute’s first director of minority student affairs in 1979.

  In addition to his work as a student life administrator, Dr. Knowles is also a widely acclaimed percussionist, with credits on numerous recordings by Gil Scott-Heron. As an adjunct associate professor of arts at Rensselaer, Dr. Knowles teaches Afro-Cuban drumming.

  Dr. Knowles earned a doctorate in public administration and policy from the University at Albany’s Nelson A. Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Lincoln University and a master’s degree in higher education from Columbia University.

  Dr. Knowles has received wide recognition and honors for his work in education, community service, and the arts in his home of Troy, New York. He is a member of the board of the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall, the Center for Urban Youth in Technology at the University at Albany, the Sponsors for Educational Opportunity in New York, and the Edwin Gould Foundation for Children in New York.

  Prior to his coming to the Capital Region, Dr. Knowles was an assistant professor and administrator in the City University of New York.

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  Dr. Jared Diamond - Pulitzer-Prize Winner and Author of Collapse

  Wright State University

  Jared Diamond is universally regarded as one of the great minds of our time. His Pulitzer-Prize winning book, Guns, Germs and Steel, has been a runaway best-seller, and the top selling science book on Amazon.com for five years running. Now,Collapse, his follow-up book has landed on the major best-sellers lists as well and is drawing critical reviews.

  Currently a professor of Geography at UCLA, he is also the author of two other best-selling books, The Third Chimpanzee andWhy Is Sex Fun? He has received some of the most prestigious awards the world has to offer. He is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation genius grant, the Conservation medals of the Zoological Society of San Diego (1993), the Carr Medal (1989), and Japan's International Cosmos Prize (1998). In 1999, President Clinton bestowed the USA's highest civilian award in science, The National Medal of Science, for Dr. Diamond's landmark research and breakthrough discoveries in evolutionary Biology. In 2001 he was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, in recognition of his tremendous contributions to the field of conservation biology.

  The breadth of his interests and expertise is truly remarkable, ranging from environmental history through evolutionary biology to molecular physiology. With Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond explained the environmental and geographic reasons why certain human populations have flourished. In his newest book, Collapse, he uses these same factors to examine why ancient societies, including the Viking colonies of Greenland, as well as modern ones such as Rwanda, have fallen apart. The book was an instant best-seller and has drawn critical accolades on a par with, if not even better than, the landmark Guns, Germs and Steel. Dr. Diamond's body of work has also been the subject of a PBS special: Great Minds of Science: Evolution.

  Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

  The ruined cities, temples, and statues of history's great, vanished societies (Easter Island, Anasazi, the Lowland Maya, Angkor Wat, Great Zimbabwe and many more) are the birthplace of endless romantic mysteries. But these disappearances offer more than idle conjecture: the social collapses were due in part to the types of environmental problems that beset us today.

  Yet many societies facing similar problems do not collapse. What makes certain societies especially vulnerable? Why didn't their leaders perceive and solve their environmental problems? What can we learn from their fates, and what can we do differently today to help us avoid their fates?

  Guns, Germs and Steel

  Dr. Jared Diamond's blockbuster bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel won him a Pulitzer Prize and a place as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. His lecture of the same name takes audiences on an intellectual odyssey that challenges our assumptions about the rise and fall of civilizations. Dr. Diamond asks and answers a very simple question: Why did Europeans and Asians conquer the indigenous peoples of Africa, the New World, Australia and the South Pacific, instead of being conquered themselves?

  The answer touches on technology, genetics, genocide, zebras, pestilence, weather, geography, and luck. It also unconditionally refutes racist dogma that claims biological superiority for Eurasians. Geographical accidents, not intelligence, seem to be the reasons for Eurasia's success. Audiences will walk away with profound insights into how we got where we are and what this may mean for where we are going. Entering an intellectual maelstrom, they will be discussing and debating these ideas for months to come.

  Globalization: For Better or For Worse

  Until September 11th of 2001, we equated globalization mostly with 'us' sending 'them' our modern accomplishments: the Internet and Coca-Cola. Now, we are painfully aware of the unpredictable and reciprocal nature of global contact: AIDS, terrorism, unstoppable illegal immigration and diabetes epidemics. What will globalization really bring the world, and how can we minimize its negative impact while continuing to benefit from the advantages of shared cultures and resources?

  Globalization means that remote societies can no longer collapse without influencing the rest of the world (as with Easter Island and the Anasazi societies of many centuries ago,) and we are the first society in history with the chance to develop using a comprehensive contemporary and historical understanding of our collective path.

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  Dr. Manning Marable - Educator, Author, and Journalist

  Wright State University

  Dayton native Dr. Manning Marable is one of America’s most influential and widely read scholars. Since 1993, he has been professor of public affairs, political science, and history at Columbia University, where from 1993 to 2003 he was founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Under his leadership, the Institute has become one of the nation’s most prestigious centers of scholarship on the black American experience.

  Marable received his A.B. degree from Earlham College in 1971 and his Ph.D. in American History from the University of Maryland in 1976. Before Columbia University, he was the founding director of Colgate University’s Africana and Latin American Studies Program from 1983 to 1987, chair of the Black Studies Department at The Ohio State University from 1987 to 1989, and professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder from 1989 to 1993.

  A prolific author, Marable has written over 275 articles in academic journals and edited volumes. He has written and/or edited 24 books and scholarly anthologies. His most recent books prominently include Living Black History: How Reimaging the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future, Race and Labor in the New US Economy (as editor with Immanuel Neww and Joseph Williams), and Racializing Justice: Disenfranchising Lives (as editor with Keesha Middlemass and Ian Steinberg). Also, he and Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers, have edited The Autobiography of Medgar Evers, a reconstruction of his hero’s life through his speeches, letters, and papers. Marable is currently at work on Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention and, as editor with Kristen Clarke Avery, on Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race and Public Policy.

  Marable is a national leader in the development of Web-based, educational resources on the African American experience. With Columbia’s Center for New Media Teaching and Malcolm X, respectively, he directed the production of two E-courses, a multimedia version of Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, in 2001, and a massive multimedia version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

  For almost three decades, Marable has written a political commentary series, Along the Color Line, which appears in over four hundred newspapers and journals worldwide. He is regularly featured in national and international media. He donates much of his time fundraising and speaking on behalf of prisoners’ rights, labor civil rights, faith-based institutions, and other social justice organizations.

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  Ahmed Ould Daddah - Member of Democratic Forces Party and Activist

  Wright State University

  Emerging Democracy in Africa

  Ahmed Ould Daddah, of the rally of Democratic Forces Party, the largest party within the Mauritanian Parliament, was the runner-up in the 2007 presidential election and now bears the title head of opposition for his party. Daddah is half-brother of the first Mauritanian president, Mokhtar Ould Daddah. He has a degree in economic sciences and served as economic advisor to the president in the 1960s. He also served as governor of the Mauritanian Central Bank in the 1970s and, briefly, as minister of trade and finance in 1978. He was arrested and released on several occasions for demonstrating against former government officials and practices.

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  Christopher Gardner - Self-made Millionaire and Author

  Wright State University

  Self-made millionaire and author of the autobiography, The Pursuit of Happyness "Breaking the Cycle"

  Christopher Gardner, who told his story of rising from poverty to self-made millionaire in his autobiography The Pursuit of Happyness, presented "Breaking the Cycle" as part of Wright State University's Presidential Lecture Series on Monday, Sept. 10, at 5:30 p.m. in the Student Union Apollo Room.

  In The Pursuit of Happyness, Gardner tells how he overcame a lack of education, the struggles of being a single parent and homelessness to become CEO of Gardner Rich LLC, an institutional brokerage firm. His autobiography quickly became a New York Times #1 bestseller and was made into a movie of the same name starring Will Smith.

  In the early 1980s, Gardner became homeless in San Francisco and the sole guardian of his toddler son, Chris Jr. Unwilling to give up on his son or his dream of financial independence, Gardner started at the bottom of the financial industry ladder with very little pay, spending nights in homeless shelters or the bathroom of a subway station. With no college degree and no experience in the stock market, he worked his way up the ranks at Dean Witter Reynolds and Bear Stearns & Co. before starting his own company.

  In his presentation, Gardner shared his story of hard work, tenacity, struggle, faith, entrepreneurialism, fatherly devotion and breaking the cycles that hold you back.

  The Wright State University Presidential Lecture Series was developed to advance human justice and promote the university's commitment to creating a diverse university community and learning environment.

  A board member of the National Fatherhood Initiative, which aims to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children growing up with involved, responsible, committed fathers, Gardner received the group's Father of the Year Award in 2002. He has given his time, assistance and financial support to many programs serving the homeless and at-risk individuals. He received the 2006 Friends of Africa Award from the Continental Africa Chamber of Commerce.

  This free-to-the-public lecture was sponsored by the Office of the Provost, Student Affairs, the Raj Soin College of Business, the College of Education and Human Services, the Office of the Senior Vice President for Curriculum and Instruction, University College, the Office of Student Activities and the Office of Communications and Marketing.

  Visit http://www.chrisgardnermedia.com for more information on Christopher Gardner.

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  Edward James Olmos - John Anson Ford Award Winner and national spokesperson

  Wright State University

  We're All in the Same Gang

  Actor and activist Edward James Olmos will join the WSU community in celebrating its 40th Anniversary as a Presidential Lecture Series speaker, in collaboration with Wright State's annual Quest for Community: A Call to Action conference.

  Considered by many to be the voice of Latin America in Hollywood and around the nation, Olmos is active in many causes. He has given motivational speeches at reservations, prisons, high schools, and colleges. The Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations awarded Olmos the John Anson Ford Award for his efforts after the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. The NAACP has honored him for his leadership in promoting racial unity. Along with his role as Adama on the cable series Battlestar Galactica, Olmos recently directed the film Walkout for HBO.

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  Richard Florida - Social Theorist and Public Intellectual

  Wright State University

  Social theorist and public intellectual Richard Florida will join the WSU community in celebrating its 40th Anniversary as a Presidential Lecture Series speaker, in collaboration with the Southwestern Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE).

  Author of The Rise of the Creative Class, named a leading breakthrough idea by the Harvard Business Review, Florida believes that human creativity is the engine of economic growth and that for the first time in history, economic growth depends on the further development of a wide spectrum of human capabilities.

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  Dr. Wangari Maathai - National Council of Women of Kenya and Pan African Green Belt Network.

  Wright State University

  Empowerment and the Escape from Poverty

  Wangari Muta Maathai was born in Nyeri, Kenya, in 1940, the daughter of farmers in the highlands of Mount Kenya. The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctoral degree, Professor Maathai obtained a degree in Biological Sciences from Mount St. Scholastica College in Atchison, Kansas (1964). She subsequently earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Pittsburgh (1966). She pursued doctoral studies in Germany and the University of Nairobi, obtaining a Ph.D. (1971) from the University of Nairobi, where she also taught veterinary anatomy. She became chair of the Department of Veterinary Anatomy and an associate professor in 1976 and 1977 respectively. She was the first woman in the region to attain those positions.

  Wangari Maathai served in the National Council of Women of Kenya in 1976-87 and was its chairman from 1981-87. She introduced her tree- planting concept to ordinary citizens in 1976. Professor Maathai went on to develop it into the Green Belt Movement, a broad-based, grassroots organization whose main focus is helping women's groups plant trees to conserve the environment and improve quality of life. Through the Green Belt Movement, she now has helped women plant more than 30 million trees on their farms, on schools, and on church compounds.

  In 1986 the Movement established a Pan African Green Belt Network, which has taught more than 40 people from other African countries the Green Belt Movement's approach to environmental conservation and community building. Some of these people have established similar tree-planting initiatives in their own countries. Others have gone on to use Green Belt Movement methods to improve their environmental conservation efforts. Several African countries have started similar successful initiatives, including Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Lesotho, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe.

  In 1998, Professor Maathai joined the campaign of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition. As co-chair of the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, she has played a leading role in seeking the cancellation of the overwhelming and unpayable debts of poor countries in Africa. She also has campaigned tirelessly against land grabbing and the theft of public forests.

  Wangari Maathai is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human rights, and environmental conservation. She has addressed the United Nations on several occasions, and she spoke on behalf of women at special sessions of the General Assembly for the five-year review of the 1992 Earth Summit. She has served on the U.N. Commission for Global Governance and the Commission on the Future. She and the Green Belt Movement have received numerous awards, most notably the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize.

  Professor Maathai is listed in United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Global 500 Hall of Fame and was named one of the 100 Heroines of the World. In June 1997, Professor Maathai was elected by Earth Times as one of 100 people in the world who have made a difference in the environmental arena. In 2005, Professor Maathai was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by Forbes magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. She also has received honorary doctoral degrees from several institutions around the world, among them Williams College in Massachusetts (1990), Hobart and William Smith Colleges (1994), the University of Norway (1997) and Yale University (2004).

  The Green Belt Movement, Professor Maathai, and their compelling stories are featured in several publications including The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the Approach and the Experience (Wangari Maathai, 2002), Speak Truth to Power (Kerry Kennedy Cuomo, 2000), Women Pioneers for the Environment (Mary Joy Breton, 1998), Hopes Edge: The Next Diet for a Small Planet (Frances Moore LappÈ and Anna LappÈ, 2002), Una Sola Terra: Donna I Medi Ambient Despres de Rio (Brice Lalonde et al., 1998), and Land Ist Leben (Bedrohte Volker, 1993).

  Professor Maathai serves on the boards of several organizations, including the UN Secretary General's Advisory Board on Disarmament, the Women's Environment and Development Organization (WEDO), World Learning (USA), Green Cross International, Environment Liaison Centre International, the WorldWIDE Network of Women in Environmental Work, and the National Council of Women of Kenya.

  In December 2002, Professor Maathai was elected to Kenya's Parliament and was subsequently appointed by Kenya's president as Assistant Minister for the Environment.

  In 2005 Wangari Maathai was elected Presiding Officer of the Economic, Social and Cultural Council (ECOSOCC) of the African Union, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Council will advise the African Union on issues related to African civil society. Eleven African heads of state whose countries are on the Congo Basin also appointed her a Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest Ecosystem, an advocacy role for the conservation and protection of this vital Ecosystem.

  In 2006, French President Jacques Chirac awarded Wangari Maathai France's highest honor, the Legion d'Honneur. The decoration ceremony took place in Paris in April 2006 and was presided over by the French Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development, Nelly Olin.

  • The Disney Conservation Fund Award (2006)
  • Paul Harris Fellowship (2005)
  • The Sophie Prize (2004)
  • The Petra Kelly Prize (2004)
  • The Conservation Scientist Award (2004)
  • The J. Sterling Morton Award (2004)
  • The WANGO Environment Award (2003)
  • Outstanding Vision and Commitment Award (2002)
  • The Excellence Award from the Kenyan Community Abroad (2001)
  • The Juliet Hollister Award (2001)
  • The Golden Ark Award (1994)
  • The Jane Addams Leadership Award (1993)
  • The Edinburgh Medal (1993)
  • The Hunger Project's Africa Prize for Leadership (1991)
  • The Goldman Environmental Prize (1991)
  • Women of the World Award (1989)
  • The Windstar Award for the Environment (1988)
  • The Better World Society Award (1986)
  • The Right Livelihood Award (1984)
  • The Woman of the Year Award (1983)

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  Harry Belafonte - Cultural advisor to the Peace Corps and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador

  Wright State University

  Called "The Consummate Entertainer" for his achievements as a concert singer, recording artist, movie, Broadway, and television star and producer, Harry Belafonte's human rights activities are also respected around the world. His version of The Banana Boat Song on the album Calypso brought Jamaica's calypso beat to mainstream audiences and was the first album to sell one million copies. One of the first African American producers in television, Belafonte won an Emmy Award for Tonight with Belafonte and has been a frequent guest on television variety shows. His film career includes roles in Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun, Buck and the Preacher, and Kansas City.

  Well-known as an advocate for human rights, Belafonte was cultural advisor to the Peace Corps and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. His awards include the Albert Einstein Award from Yeshiva University, the Martin Luther King Jr. Peace Prize, the Kennedy Center Honors for excellence in the performing arts, and for his work with children, the Acorn Award from Bronx Community College.

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  Dr. Maya Angelou - Renaissance Woman and Writer

  Wright State University

  Dr. Maya Angelou is hailed as one of the great voices of contemporary black literature and as a remarkable Renaissance woman. A mesmerizing vision of grace, swaying and stirring when she moves; Dr. Angelou captivates her audiences lyrically with vigor, fire and perception. She has the unique ability to shatter the opaque prisms of race and class between reader and subject throughout her books of poetry and her autobiographies.

  Dr. Angelou, born Marguerite Johnson on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis was raised in segregated rural Arkansas. She is a poet, historian, author, actress, playwright, civil-rights activist, producer and director. She lectures throughout the U.S. and abroad and is a lifetime Reynolds professor of American Studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina since 1981. She has authored twelve best-selling books and numerous magazine articles earning her Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominations. In 1993, Angelou became the second poet in US History to have the honor of writing and reciting original work at the Presidential Inauguration. On the Pulse of Morning, at Bill Clinton's presidential inauguration, was an occasion that gave her wide recognition for which she was awarded a Grammy award (best spoken word).

  Dr. Angelou, who speaks French, Spanish, Italian and West African Fanti, began her career in drama and dance. She married a South African freedom fighter and lived in Cairo where she was editor of The Arab Observer, the only English-language news weekly in the Middle East. In Ghana, she was feature editor of The African Review and taught at the University of Ghana. Dr. Angelou, poet, was among the first African-American women to hit the bestsellers lists with I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a chronicle of her life up to age sixteen (and ending with the birth of her son, Guy), which was published in 1970 with great critical and commercial success.

  In the sixties, at the request of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Dr. Angelou became the northern coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and in 1975 she received the Ladies Home Journal Woman of the Year Award in communications. She received numerous honorary degrees and was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the National Commission on the Observance of International Woman's Year and by President Ford to the American Revolutionary Bicentennial Advisory Council. She is on the board of the American Film Institute and is one of the few female members of the Director's Guild.

  In the film industry, through her work in script writing and directing, Dr. Angelou has been a groundbreaker for black women. In television, she has made hundreds of appearances. Her best-selling autobiographical account of her youth, I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings, won critical acclaim in 1970 and was a two-hour TV special on CBS. She has written and produced several prize-winning documentaries, including Afro-Americans in the Arts, a PBS special for which she received the Golden Eagle Award. She was also nominated for an Emmy Award for her acting in Roots, and her screenplay Georgia, Georgia, which was the first by a black woman to be filmed. In theatre, she produced, directed and starred in Cabaret for Freedom in collaboration with Godfrey Cambridge at New York's Village Gate; starred in Genet's The Blacks at St Mark's Playhouse; and adapted Sophocles Ajax, which premiered in Los Angeles in 1974.

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  Mike Farrell - Humanitarian, Donald Wright Award Winner, and M*A*S*H Actor

  Wright State University

  Being Informed, Getting Involved, Making a Difference

  Few actors can claim the distinction of starring in a television series as critically and commercially successful as M*A*S*H, but far fewer ever choose to commit themselves to the human rights and public service causes that are humanitarian Mike Farrell's passion. During his eight years portraying Captain B. J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H, Farrell also wrote and directed several episodes and earned nominations for Director's Guild and Emmy Awards. Along with partner Marvin Minoff, Farrell formed Farrell/Minoff Productions, which produced the films Dominick and Eugene and Patch Adams. As a citizen, Farrell speaks around the country on human rights, the death penalty, the environment, and many other issues. In 2004, Farrell received the Donald Wright Award from the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, a rare instance in which the award recipient was neither a lawyer nor a judge.

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  Oliver Sacks - British neurologist, writer and Professor of Neurology

  Wright State University

  For the past four decades, Dr. Oliver Sacks has explored the mysteries of the mind. From sleeping sickness to colorblindness to hallucinations and psychoses, each time he has revealed the spirit within the individual and the unshakable capacity to be human in the face of seemingly insurmountable forces. Dr. Sacks' speech will be held during National Brain Awareness Week.

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  Ruby Dee - Actress, Author, and Activist

  Wright State University

  In celebration of Wright State University's Martin Luther King commemoration and the 35th anniversary of the Bolinga Black Cultural Resources Center

  Ruby Dee, noted actress, author, and activist for social justice, has appeared in more than 40 films and countless Broadway plays during a 50-year stage and screen career. Dee was acclaimed for her acting in her late husband Ossie Davis's satirical exploration of segregation, Purlie Victorious; in A Raisin in the Sun; her Ace Award-winning performance in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night; and in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. In 1965, she played Kate in The Taming of the Shrew and Cordelia in King Lear in the American Shakespeare Festival. She won an Emmy in 1991 for NBC's Decoration Day. She and Davis received a Life Achievement Award, the highest honor bestowed by the Screen Actors Guild. Tireless human rights activists, Dee and Davis were close friends of Malcolm X (whom Davis eulogized as "our own black shining prince"), and their production company produced the PBS special "Martin Luther King: The Dream and the Drum." While remaining active in social causes, Dee has still found time to write plays, musicals, poetry books, and her one-woman show, My One Good Nerve.

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  Roger Wilkins - Award-Winning Journalist and Civil Rights Activist

  Wright State University

  The Voting Rights Act: Promise and Reality

  Roger Wilkins is an award-winning journalist, author, and civil rights advocate whose personal history is interwoven with the pivotal times in which he has lived. Wilkins interned with Thurgood Marshall at the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund during his college years at the University of Michigan, where he earned his B.A. and J.D. degrees. As his interest in legal issues and equality grew, he became an assistant attorney general under President Johnson. In 1972, he began writing editorials for The Washington Post as the Watergate scandal was coming to light, earning a Pulitzer Prize along with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He became the first African American to serve on The New York Times' editorial board. He has subsequently worked for the Institute for Policy Studies, The Washington Star, and National Public Radio.

  He is currently a Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University.

  Wilkins is the author of several books, including Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism, which won the 2002 NAIBA Book Award for Adult Nonfiction.

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  Les Brown - Author of Live Your Dreams & It's Not Over Until You Win

  Wright State University

  Les Brown is one of the nation's leading authorities on understanding and stimulating human potential. He has collected several prestigious national honors for his speaking as CEO of Les Brown Enterprises, Inc., over the last 19 years. Brown has hosted The Les Brown Show, a nationally syndicated television talk show and authored the highly acclaimed and successful books Live Your Dreams and It's Not Over Until You Win. He is a former three-term legislator in the Ohio House of Representatives whose ties to this region include working as a radio deejay in Columbus before starting his speaking career. Brown delivers a high-energy message, telling his audience to avoid mediocrity and live up to their greatness. His comments will teach, inspire, and challenge you to reach higher levels of achievement.

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  Diane Nash - Founding Member of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee

  Wright State University

  A Reflection upon My Experiences as a Social Activist During the Civil Rights Movement

  Diane Nash's lifetime of activism started in 1959 at Fisk University when James Lawson offered several nonviolence workshops in which Nash took part. As an activist, she has crossed paths with many famous Civil Rights leaders, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

  Nash was one of the founding students of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and coordinator of the Freedom Ride. Appointed by President John F. Kennedy to a national committee that promoted the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, she was awarded the John F. Kennedy Library Distinguished American Award in March 2003, and the LBJ Award for Leadership in Civil Rights in March 2004.

  This is the inaugural address in the Presidential Lecture Series, developed to advance human justice and promote the university's commitment to creating a diverse university community and learning environment.