The Emancipation Support Committee begins its 1999 program in commemoration of emancipation with the formal launch of the Kwame Ture Memorial Lecture Series at 6:30 pm on June 12th. The special occasion will take the form of a rally at Spektakula Forum, showcasing top local artistes and an invited guest to do the feature lecture.
After the positive impacts of Kwame Ture in
1996, Tony Martin in 1997 and Winnie Mandela in 1998, expectations are
high for this year's chosen speaker, Sister Kathleen Cleaver.
In part her name recognition comes from the fact that she was the former
wife of the late Eldridge Cleaver, a prominent leader of the militant Black
Panther Party in the U.S.A. in the late 1960's. But Kathleen Cleaver was
a leader in her own right. She was a Central Committee member of the Black
Panther Party, in fact the first woman to hold such a leadership position
in that organization.
Kathleen Cleaver is an ideal person to deliver
the inaugural lecture in the series, having worked with Kwame Ture in the
Students' Non-violent Co-ordinating Committee and in the Black Panther
Party. She is now an attorney and Professor of Law at Emory University,
employing her skills in the cause of African-American political prisoners.
She will speak from first hand experience on "The Revolution from the Inside:
Kwame Ture, Black Power, Black Panthers and the Struggle for African Freedom".