Lewis & Clark Hosts Black History Scholars

Lewis & Clark College will host four nationally known leaders in their respective fields for Black History Month.
Rebecca Walker, Robin D.G. Kelley, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Jamie Washington all have international reputations for their leadership, activism and their thought-provoking writing and speaking.
"We're honored to have such a distinguished group of African American scholars coming to campus for this year's Black History Month," said Lisa Webb, associate dean of the college and director of Ethnic Student Services. "This is a very exciting time for Lewis & Clark in terms of diversity."

Walker will speak on "Being Black, White, and Jewish" at 7 p.m. Feb. 8 in Agnes Flangan Chapel. Time magazine named Walker one of the 50 most influential future leaders of America when she was only 25. The daughter of Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker in 2002 published her memoir, Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self.
The book, an international bestseller, won the Alex Award from the American Library Association. She also wrote To Be Real: Telling the Truth and Changing the Face of Feminism, an anthology that remains in print after more than 10 years.
In addition to her writing, Walker is a speaker, and teacher and activist.
Kelley has been lauded by author and educator Cornel West as "the pre-eminent historian of Black popular culture writing today."
Kelley will give a speech titled "A Joyful Noise: Radical Spirituality and Modern Jazz" at 7 p.m. Feb. 13 in the Council Chamber in Templeton Student Center.
A professor at the University of Southern California, he has authored numerous books including Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. He has served as a professor at Columbia University and was chair of the history department and professor of history and Africana studies at New York University. Kelley is working on a biography of legendary jazz musician Thelonious Monk.

Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University, will give a talk titled "Cosmopolitanism" at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 in Agnes Flanagan Chapel. An internationally known scholar, Appiah also has taught at Harvard, Duke, Cornell and Yale. He has published widely in the area of African and African American literary and cultural studies.
Appiah is the author of books including, In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture and Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers. He has also written three novels and co-edited Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience with Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Washington is a nationally known speaker, consultant and a diversity leadership trainer. He will lead a workshop titled "We're all in This Together: Coalition Building across Difference" at 6 p.m. Feb. 28 in Smith Hall in Albany Quadrangle.
Washington founded the Washington Consulting Group, a multicultural organizational development firm based in Baltimore, Md. and now serves as the group's president. He was an educator and administrator in higher education for more than 18 years. His honors include a mayoral citation as one of Baltimore's Men of the Year, the 2001 American College Personnel Association Diamond Honoree award for significant contributions to higher education and student affairs work and a 2002 Voices of Inclusion award for his work in the area of social justice education.
All events in the Black History Month Speaker Series are free and open to the public. There is a small fee for parking on campus. Lewis & Clark College is at 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road. For more information, call 503-768-7051.