News Brief

Dr. Timothy B. Tyson, author of "Blood Done Sign My Name," will give a free lecture titled "Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Black Power’ and the Southern Dream of Freedom" on the UNC campus at 6 p.m. Monday (Aug. 29).

A book signing and dessert reception will follow the lecture, which will be held at the Frank Porter Graham Student Union Great Hall. A live video feed to the student union auditorium will be provided to accommodate overflow seating.

"Blood Done Sign My Name" was chosen as UNC’s Summer Reading Program selection for 2005. As a part of this program, UNC asks all new students to read a book over the summer and come prepared to participate in small group discussions led by trained faculty and staff. The non-credit assignment – which culminates in discussions being held Monday afternoon – is voluntary.

"Blood Done Sign My Name" explores events in rural North Carolina in the years following passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The book tells the story of the killing of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran in Oxford, N.C., who was brutally murdered by three white men in 1970.

More information on the Summer Reading Program and Tyson’s book is at www.unc.edu/srp/.

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An undersea research mission, scheduled to be broadcast live at UNC’s Morehead Planetarium and Science Center on Friday (Aug. 26), has been canceled as Tropical Storm Katrina approaches the research site in Florida.

The Morehead Center has canceled the public broadcast event scheduled for Friday night. Several school groups participated in a daytime event today (Aug. 25) that included video footage from earlier in the mission, as well as interactive conversations with the scientists who participated.

UNC researchers completed 10 days of their mission on board the undersea research laboratory Aquarius before the mission was canceled. They left Aquarius today.

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