Expert to speak on civil rights since Freedom Summer of 1964

Charles Ogletree Jr.

Charles Ogletree Jr., Jesse Climenko professor of law at Harvard University, will evaluate progress since the 1964 campaign to register black voters in the Deep South during his upcoming talk, “Looking Back on Freedom Summer: Reflections on Race, Politics and Civil Rights Activism,” presented by the University of Illinois at Chicago.

WHEN:

March 12
3 p.m.

WHERE:

UIC Student Center East, Room 302
750 S. Halsted St.

DETAILS:

Criminal law specialist Charles Ogletree Jr., will give the annual Phillip J. Bowman Lecture presented by UIC’s Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.

Ogletree directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. He is the first holder of the Jesse Climenko professorship, established in 1998 to support instruction in the practical aspects of law. Ogletree, a 1978 graduate of Harvard Law School, has successfully argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and various state and federal courts throughout the country.

His most recent book is “The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class and Crime in America,” which draws on the 2009 mistaken arrest of Gates to explore issues of race and what must be done to create a more just legal system.

“While lynchings are a relic of the past, the racial discrimination that motivated them retains a stranglehold on today’s criminal justice system,” Ogletree says.

The Annual Phillip J. Bowman lecture honors the former director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy by inviting scholars of national reputation to speak on key issues for academics and communities of color. The talk is part of the UIC Chancellor’s Lecture and Event Series and is co-sponsored by the UIC Social Justice Initiative.