Dr. Robert Luckett, director of the Margaret Walker Center for the Study of the African-American Experience at Jackson State University, will present “This Is My Century: Margaret Walker and the Black Arts Movement” at 7:30 p.m. Friday at The W’s Poindexter Hall.
As part of The W’s Black History Month, the lecture will also headline the Mississippi Philological Association’s annual conference, being held at the university.
Born in 1905 and known for “For My People” and the neo-slave narrative “Jubilee,” Walker wrote nine books. As a professor of English at Jackson State University and a leader in the nascent Black Studies movement, she also made an indelible contribution as a mentor for hundreds of students and many writers, actors and scholars such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and James Baldwin.
Luckett received his doctorate from the University of Georgia with a focus on civil rights movement history. His book “Joe T. Patterson and the Dilemma of the White South: Evolving Resistance to Black Advancement” was published by University Press of Mississippi last year.
He has appeared in documentaries on the civil rights movement, including the Independent Lens film “Spies of Mississippi” and “An Ordinary Hero” about the life of Joan Trumpauer Mulhollhand.
The lecture is financially assisted by the National Endowment for the Humanities through the Mississippi Humanities Council and is free and open to the public.
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