For Immediate Release Contact: Barbara K. Laskin
February 5, 2004 Doug Stone
(651) 696-6203

Fifth Annual African American Studies Conference at Macalester
Fifty Years Since Brown v. Board of Education: Where Are We Now?
Photographer and Macalester Alumnus Flip Schulke to Receive Honorary Degree

St. Paul, Minn. - On May 17, 1954, the United States Supreme Court ruled that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal" thus ending segregation in public schools. That ruling is the basis for the Fifth Annual African American Studies Conference at Macalester College titled "Fifty Years Since Brown v. Board of Education: Where Are We Now," Friday, February 13 through Sunday, February 15, 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, Minn., various campus locations. See attached calendar for more detailed information.

Kathleen Cleaver, senior lecturer in the African American Studies Department at Yale University, will give the keynote address "Fifty Years Since Brown v. Board of Education: Where Are We Now," Friday, February 13. Cleaver, a major voice in the Black Liberation Movements of the 1960s and 1970s, continues today to speak out against racism, sexism and economic inequality. From 1967 to 1971, she was the communications secretary of the Black Panther Party and the first woman member of its Central Committee. After sharing years of exile with her former husband Eldridge Cleaver, she returned to the United States in late 1975. Since graduating from Yale Law School in 1989, Cleaver has combined legal work, teaching and activism.

Pre-conference events, Wednesday, February 11, and Thursday, February 12, include a symposium titled "Class, Gender, and Generation: Negotiations Within Black Families," and a lecture and photo exhibit featuring photographer and Macalester College alumnus Flip Schulke who will also be receiving an honorary degree from the college.

Schulke, a native of New Ulm, Minn., is a 1954 graduate of Macalester College, where he received his first formal training as a photojournalist with the yearbook and the Mac Weekly. Schulke's photographs have appeared in Life, National Geographic and Ebony, and his subjects have included Martin Luther King, Jr., Fidel Castro and John F. Kennedy. Schulke is most famous for his photo documentation of the U.S. civil rights movement.

Other symposium topics include "Historical Perspectives on Brown v. Board of
Education;" "The Challenges of Black Students at Predominantly White
Colleges;" "Black Artistry Fifty Years After Brown v. Board of Education: Image,
Message and Meaning," with Stanley Crouch, Cedric Dent and Alexs D. Pate, (at
The University of St. Thomas); "Post Civil Rights: Public Policy and Affirmative
Action" and "Complicating Community Definitions of Blackness in Hostile
Territories."

Macalester is a private liberal arts college with a full-time enrollment of 1,810 students. Macalester is nationally recognized for its commitment to academic excellence, internationalism, diversity and service to society.