Political activist Angela Davis will give the keynote address titled "Unfinished Liberation: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex" at a three-day conference on race and gender issues March 13-15 at the University of Colorado at Â鶹¹ÙÍø.
Davis will speak March 15 at 2 p.m. in Macky Auditorium. The conference is titled "Unfinished Liberation: Policing, Detention and Prisons" and will include the screening of 14 documentary films and panel discussions on a variety of issues including the death penalty, political prisoners, sexual violence, prisoner rights and land rights struggles.
All events are free and open to the public.
Speakers will include Robert Meeropol, the younger son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the only people in the United States to be executed for conspiracy to commit espionage; Christine Choy, chair of the New York University Film Studies program and winner of numerous international awards; M. Wesley Swearingen, who retired after 25 years with the FBI and has been instrumental in documenting FBI harassment against political dissidents; Lee Lew-Lee, winner of a 1993 Academy Award for the documentary "Panama Deception" and Maria Jimenez, project director of the Immigration Law Enforcement Monitoring Project of the American Friends Service Committee in Houston.
Davis has emerged as an internationally respected writer, scholar, lecturer and activist for human rights. She is a co-founder of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression and serves on the board of directors of the National Black Women's Health Project and national organizations dealing with incarceration and human rights. She teaches at the University at California, Santa Cruz in the History of Consciousness program.
The conference is sponsored by the Center for Studies of Ethnicity and Race in America in the department of ethnic studies, the Cultural Events Board, the University of Colorado Student Union and the Women Studies Club.
March 13 will feature the screening of seven documentary films beginning at 12:30 p.m. in the University Memorial Center's Forum Room with "Black and Blue," which describes police brutality against minorities in Philadelphia. At 4 p.m., the documentary "A Shot Heard 'Round the World’ ” is scheduled, by Christine Choy on the 1997 murder of a Japanese exchange student in Baton Rouge, La.
At 7 p.m. in room 100 of the Mathematics Building will be a showing and discussion of "All Power to the People: The Black Panther Party and Beyond" by Lee Lew-Lee, which examines the covert operations of the FBI and CIA against Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement.
On March 14 at 11:15 a.m. in the UMC Forum Room, Cuban filmmaker Gloria Rolando will present her film "Eyes of the Rainbow," a discussion of black culture and political exiles in Cuba. At 4 p.m. will be a screening of "Licensed to Kill" by filmmaker Arthur Dong, featuring interviews with incarcerated murderers of gay men.
March 14 also will feature additional film screenings and panel discussions and a plenary roundtable at 8:15 p.m. in Math 100 on "Indigenous Autonomy and Land Rights Struggles."
March 15 will conclude with panels, workshops, repeat screenings of some films and the keynote address by Angela Davis.
Events are being held at several CU-Â鶹¹ÙÍø locations. For screening times and other event information call (303) 492-7051 or visit the conference web site at .