News Release

By JIM WALSH
UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- Dr. Mary Frances Berry, the first woman to head the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, will be the featured speaker at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s first campuswide lecture for African-American History Month on Feb. 10.

The 7 p.m. event will be held in Cobb Theatre of the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History and is free to the public. A book signing will follow the lecture.

Berry is Geraldine R. Segal professor of American social thought and professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania.

She will deliver a lecture titled "Callie House and the Black Reparations Movement: 1897 to the Present." Berry will discuss the ex-slave pension movement and reparations, topics she has researched for more than a decade.

"She’s a very important figure in American history and civil rights, and I think she will give a powerful lecture for our students, faculty and the Chapel Hill community," said Dr. William Ferris, Joel R. Williamson eminent professor of history, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South and adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore.

Noted for her public service and activism, Berry was a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights from 1980 to 2004 and became its first chairwoman in 1993, serving in that role until 2004. She was the assistant secretary for education in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) from 1977 through 1980.

She also was one of the founders of the Free South Africa Movement, which organized protests in the 1980s at the South African Embassy to raise awareness of the country’s struggle for democracy.

Berry, who has a doctorate in history and a law degree from the University of Michigan, has worked extensively in academic teaching and administration. She holds 32 honorary degrees. Former provost at the University of Maryland, Berry was the first woman to be appointed chancellor at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

She also has written many books. Her recent titles include "The Pig Farmer’s Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice: Episodes of Racism and Sexism in the Courts from 1865 to the Present" (1999) and "Black Resistance, White Law: A History of Constitutional Racism in America" (1994).

"This year’s national theme for African-American History Month is ‘protest,’ " said Dr. Genna Rae McNeil, professor of history at UNC. "It is fitting that a nationally known African-American scholar-activist who has both written and made history is the speaker for this first universitywide African-American History Month lecture. Berry has exhaustively researched and published on issues of race, law and the African-American protest tradition."

The lecture is sponsored by the department of history, in collaboration with 10 other university units: the departments of African and Afro-American studies and communication studies, Center for the Study of the American South, College of Arts and Sciences, Curriculum in Women’s Studies, Institute of African American Research, Office of Minority Affairs, Office of the Provost, School of Law and Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

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Note: For a photo of Berry, click on http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/lecture/berry_mary_frances.jpg

News Services contact: Print, Deb Saine, (919) 962-8415 or deborah_saine@unc.edu