California State University, Northridge

PRESS RELEASE

February 27, 1997

Contact: Christina Marin or
Carmen Ramos Chandler,
(818) 677-2130
cmarin@exec.csun.edu

Hamer Biographer to Speak on Grassroots Activism

To complete the inauguration of its Du Bois-Hamer Institute, Cal State Northridge will host a lecture by Kay Mills on grassroots political activism from 2 to 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 4, in the Santa Clarita Room of the University Student Union.

Mills is a recognized expert on such civil rights pioneers as W.E.B. Du Bois and Fannie Lou Hamer. Her recent biography, This Little Light of Mine: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer, chronicles Hamer's rise from sharecropper's daughter to political activist.

The Du Bois-Hamer Institute for African American Achievement was created by the Pan-African Studies Department to aid black students who are new to the campus by teaming them with faculty or staff members and upperclassmen.

"Non-traditional, first-generation students often have strong pulls away from the university. The more ties we can create to the university, the more connections we can help them make, the more likely these students will remain and do well here," said Barbara Rhodes, Pan-African Studies professor.

The first inaugural lecture was given on Feb. 14 by David Levering Lewis, Martin Luther King Jr. Chair in History at Rutgers University.

For more information, call the Pan-African Studies Department at (818) 677-3311.