4/16/98
NOTE: Stokely Carmichael has cancelled his appearace at the conference due to ill health.
ATHENS, Ohio -- Kwame Ture, formerly known as Stokely Carmichael when he led civil rights marches in the South during the 1960's, Pulitzer-Prize-winning columnist Clarence Page and former Vietnam war correspondent Garrick Utley are among the historians, journalists and authors participating in "1968 Revisited," a conference on the Athens campus April 23-25.
"1968 was pivotal in many ways, a particularly critical year in turning public opinion against the Vietnam war," said Chester Pach, director of the Contemporary History Institute and conference organizer. "It was the final blow to the Johnson presidency. It was a year when many groups expressed their discontent to racism, sexism and governmental controls. It was a time of challenging authority, a time of giving voice to groups who had been excluded from power."
Ture, 56, the former "prime minister" of the Black Panther Party whose name is synonymous with the phrase "Black Power," has been beaten, gassed, chased and jailed some 30 times for advocating equality for blacks. Page, a 1969 Ohio University graduate and former editor of the student newspaper The Post, is now a syndicated columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Utley of Cable News Network, reported from Saigon, Paris, and Prague in 1968 for NBC News.
Other conference participants include:
* Tom Bates, a reporter for the Portland Oregonian and former Ohio University history professor who lost his job after he was arrested for protesting the Vietnam war.
* Wini Breines, author of "Community and Organization in the New Left" and editor of "Takin' It to the Streets: A Sixties Reader."
* Alice Echols, a biographer of Janis Joplin and feminist scholar.
* Carole Fink, an Ohio State University professor and editor of the book "1968: The World Transformed."
* Dan Thomasson, editor and vice president of Scripps Howard News Service, who covered Johnson and the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Pach said the conference will offer a chance to compare memory with history.
"I hope we can compare many of the ideas that we have about the 60s, particularly 1968, that have now become stereotypical as opposed to some of the new studies that have been done a generation later," said Pach, who contributed a chapter to Fink's book. "To what extent do we have a new appreciation of the era? It is a chance to compare memory and history. It's a chance to bring in first-hand perspectives for students to hear and to see how the mass media and the arts have shaped our recollection of what went on. "
Sponsors of the conference include the John and Elizabeth Baker Peace Studies Program, Contemporary History Institute, College of Communication and the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism.
The conference will be in Baker Center Ballroom, Ohio University Inn and 194 Irvine Auditorium, and is free and open to the public. For a schedule and more information, contact Pach at (740) 593-0096.