Purdue News

March 26, 2004

Black Cultural Center hosts talk on Hunter-Gault's 'In My Place'

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – "In My Place," a memoir by Charlayne Hunter-Gault, is the topic of a student-led discussion in Purdue University's Black Cultural Center library.

A Purdue student, Shavonne Holton, will lead the discussion, which is free and open to the public, at 6:30 p.m., April 8, and again at the same time April 9 in the cultural center library at 1100 3rd St., West Lafayette.

Holton, a theater major and pre-med minor from Indianapolis, will help attendees examine the work by Hunter-Gault, who secured her place in educational history in 1961 as the first black female student to attend the University of Georgia.

Dorothy Washington, Black Cultural Center librarian, said, "Reading and discussing 'In My Place' provides another opportunity for the Purdue and Greater Lafayette communities to join in the national conversation on Brown vs. Board of Education, Hunter-Gault’s courageous, witty and inspiring story provides insight into the impact of the Brown decision on institutions of higher education."

Hunter-Gault, a journalist and human rights activist, was born in Due West, S.C., in 1942. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Georgia in 1963. She has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times and the MacNeil/Lehrer Report.

She has received numerous honors including two Emmy awards and two Peabody awards – one for her work on "Apartheid's People," a NewsHour series on life during apartheid in South Africa and the second for general reporting on Africa in 1998. She currently serves as CNN’s Johannesburg bureau chief and correspondent.

Copies of "In My Place " are available for checkout in the Black Cultural Center library. For more information, contact Washington, (765) 494-3093 or see the BCC Reads web site.

Writer: Reni Winter, (765) 496-3133, rwinter@purdue.edu

Source: Dorothy Washington, (765) 494-3093, dwashing2@purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

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