1968 was a year that changed our world. The year brought us both the King and Kennedy assassinations and the opening Off-Broadway of "The Boys in the Band," the groundbreaking play featuring gay characters. Women’s liberation groups protested the Miss America contest and Tommie Smith and John Carlos clenched their fists in a black power salute at the Mexico City Summer Olympic Games. New York democrat Shirley Chisholm was elected as the first Black female U.S. Representative and students protested at Columbia University, in Mexico City, and around Europe. Locally, four Black boys entered Girard College after a 14-year desegregation battle and Progress Plaza was dedicated as an example of positive urban renewal and investment.

In 1968, the Kerner Commission warned racism was causing America to move “toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Join us for a conversation celebrating and reflecting on 1968 and the legacy of the Kerner Commission with Steven M. Gillon, author of Separate and Unequal: The Kerner Commission and the Unraveling of American Liberalism and Alan Curtis, co-editor of Healing our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years after the Kerner Report.

Registration is encouraged.

This program is co-sponsored by the Klein College of Media and Communication and the Academic Center on Research in Diversity (ACCORD).