John D’Emilio, professor of women’s and gender studies and history at the University of Illinois-Chicago, will give the seventh annual Carl W. Ubbelohde lecture, titled “An Agitator of Justice: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.”
The lecture will take place Thursday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 at Ford Auditorium inside the Allen Memorial Medical Library. The talk is free and open to the public.
A lifelong agitator for peace, racial equality and economic democracy, Rustin was one of the most important U.S. social justice activists of the 20th century. Yet, except for his role as organizer of the historic 1963 March on Washington, Rustin’s life and work are known by very few. This lecture will present a broad overview of Rustin’s career and offer some reflections on what we can learn from his life.
D’Emilio is the author or editor of more than half a dozen books, including Sexual Politics, Sexual Communities: the Making of a Homosexual Minority in the United States; Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America [with Estelle Freedman]; Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin; and The World Turned: Essays on Gay History, Politics, and Culture. D’Emilio has won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities; was a finalist for the National Book Award; and received the Brudner Prize from Yale University for lifetime contributions to gay and lesbian studies.
The Ubbelohde Lecture is an endowed lecture series sponsored by the Department of History and History Associates in memory of Carl Ubbelohde, an admired professor and former chair of the Case Western Reserve University Department of History.
For more information about this event, contact Emily Sparks at 216.368.2625 or emily.sparks@case.edu.