Lyceum Program in Collaboration
with THE JCSU Violence Prevention Coalition

Kevin Powell, Political Activist
“Sexism From a
Male Perspective”

Tuesday, March 18
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Kevin Powell is widely considered one of America’s most important voices in these early years of the 21st century. Powell is a political activist, poet, journalist, essayist, hip-hop historian, public speaker, and entrepreneur.

It is from his current base in New York City that Powell has published seven books, including his current title, Someday We’ll All Be Free. This new book is a collection of provocative essays on freedom, democracy, justice, and race in America, as inspired by Hurricane Katrina, the 2004 presidential election, and September 11th. Powell is set to publish two books in 2008, Letters to Young America, an essay compilation, and No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn, his second volume of poetry. Additionally, he at work on his childhood memoir, homeboy alone, slated for 2010, and The Kevin Powell Anthology (2011), that will highlight the first 25 years of his literary career. Indeed, he has written numerous essays, articles, and reviews through the years for publications such as Esquire, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Essence, Rolling Stone, and The Amsterdam News.  As a founding staff member of Vibe, hed served as a senior writer, interviewing and profiling, among many others, General Colin Powell and the late Tupac Shakur. At present, Powell is a Writing Fellow for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

A fixture on the pop culture landscape the past several years, Powell was a cast member on the first season of MTV’s The Real World; hosted and produced programming for HBO and BET; wrote a screenplay; hosted and wrote an award-winning MTV documentary about post-riot Los Angeles. He was the guest curator of the Brooklyn Museum of Art’s “Hip-Hop Nation: Roots, Rhymes, and Rage”—which originated at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, and of which Powell was the exhibition consultant—the first major exhibit in America on the history of hip-hop.

Of paramount importance to Powell, however, is his activism. He has been a leader in some form or fashion for over 20 years, dating back to his days as a teenager at Rutgers University. He was a participant in the student-led anti-apartheid movement, and the drive to end racism in South Africa. He has been at the forefront of police brutality and racial bias cases. He has worked for years around voting rights. Powell is one of the most prominent voices in the hip-hop generation, and he has organized a number of activities that stress the use of hip-hop as a tool for social change. He has become a very outspoken critic of violence against women and girls, and he has been at the forefront of the movement to redefine American manhood away from sexism and violence. Powell also plays a key role in the Black male development arena, having produced, among other things, a 10-city “State of Black Men Tour,” numerous Black male think tank sessions, and Black and Male in America, a three-day national conference. Powell has taught, mentored, and counseled in schools, camps, prisons, and on the streets of urban America. He produces an annual holiday party and clothing drive every December in New York City that benefits the needy. Powell was a central figure in Gulf Coast disaster relief efforts, facilitating the delivery of goods and services to the affected regions, and a cofounder of “Katrina on the Ground,” an initiative that sent over 700 college students to work in the devastated region.

Of his life work Kevin Powell says, simply, "My life-calling is to be a servant for the people, period. Money, fame, status, personal achievements, and all that means very little to me when pain and suffering are still real on this planet. I am interested in the powerless becoming powerful."

Lyceum Series
Fall 2007 - Spring 2008 Calendar

Click on speaker's name for more information.

Fall 2007

Thursday, September 6 — Byron Pitts, CBS Reporter
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, September 26 — Harriet Washington, Editor
and Medical Ethicist
“Medical Apartheid”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, October 4 — Dr. Na’im Akbar, Psychologist
“What Will Our Legacy Be?”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, October 24 — Beatrice Thompson, News Anchor and Talk Show Host
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, November 1 — Lyceum Program in Collaboration with the JCSU Violence
Prevention Coalition
Tony Porter, Educator and Activist
“A Call To Men”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, November 14 — Dr. Brian Johnson, Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs
“W.E.B. Du Bois, Becoming Agnostic”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

SPRING 2008

Thursday, January 24 — Co-Sponsored by the Lyceum
Program and the African and African-American Studies Program
“A Woman, Ain’t I?”
Sojourner Truth as recreated by Kathryn Woods
Dramatic Performance
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, February 6 — Faculty Showcase Event
Dr. Gregory Thompson
Chair, Department of Music Johnson C. Smith University
Piano and Woodwind Quintet Recital
The Jane M. Smith Memorial Church
7:30 p.m.

Friday, February 15 — Dr. Maha Gingrich's Indian
Dance Students
“Dances of India”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 18 — Lyceum Program in Collaboration
with THE JCSU Violence Prevention Coalition
Kevin Powell, Political Activist
“Sexism From a Male Perspecitve”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 25 — Thirteenth Annual World of
Words Poetry Festival
Dr. Patrica Jabbeh Wesley, Poet
Lionel H. Newsom Humanities Building, Room 108
Writing Workshop
4:00 p.m.

Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
Public Reading
7:30 p.m.

Wednesday, March 26 — ANNOUNCEMENT

Due to circumstances beyond our control, these Lyceum Poetry Festival events will be changed. 
Tyehimba Jess is not able to perform at this time.

Thursday, March 27 — Metta S. Sáma, Poet
(Formerly Lydia Melvin)
Lionel H. Newsom Humanities Building, Room 108
Writing Workshop
4:00 p.m.

Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
Public Reading
7:30 p.m.

Friday, March 28 — Thirteenth World of Words
Poetry Festival
Black Ink Monks Performance Poetry
Public Reading
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday and Friday, April 10 and 11 — JCSU Ira B. Aldridge
Drama Guild Performance
The Day of Absence by Douglas Turner Ward
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 17 — Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon,
Music Historian
“Notes from the Cultural Autobiography of a Freedom Singer”
Sarah Belk Gambrell Auditorium
7:30 p.m.