On Saturday, February 21, 2004, The 24th Annual Marion Thompson Wright “Black History Month” Lecture will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. the Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court Decision, which ended racial segregation in public schools. Produced each year by The Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience (IECME), the 2004 lecture program will take place from 8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., in The Paul Robeson Campus Center at Rutgers University-Newark. It is free and open to the public.

Roger Wilkins, distinguished member of the Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Commission, established by President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress, will deliver the 24th Annual Marion Thompson Wright Keynote Address. Mr. Wilkins is currently the Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University, and past chairman of the Pulitzer Prize Board.

Additional speakers include: Glenda Gilmore, Peter V & C Vann Woodward Professor of History, African, Afro-American and American Studies, Yale University; Cheryl Harris,Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law teaching in the areas of constitutional law, civil rights, critical race theory and employment discrimination; Lonnie Bunch, President of the Chicago Historical Society and Joseph DeLaine, Jr., who is also a member of the Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Commission as well as a Briggs-DeLaine-Pearson Foundation member. A video interview with Richard Kluger will also be featured in the afternoon session.

For twenty-four years, The Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series (MTW) has presented enlightening and entertaining Black History programs for the general public. These programs are designed to maintain a focus on the history of the black experience during the month of February, allowing both academic scholars and laypeople a forum in which to share their thoughts and ideas on a given theme. This year’s theme, “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas: A Retrospective,” will reflect upon the impact of this groundbreaking judicial decision and its resonance within American society a half-century later.