2/5/14
For release to: SW AL Media -
- DRAFT for UAP Review -
Civil Rights Author to Speak at Wilcox County
Civil Rights Celebration
6-7:30 PM Thursday March 6th, at the Powell Convention Center, 211 Claiborne Street, Camden, AL.
Hosted by the Wilcox County Section of National Council of Negro Women
The public is invited to an evening of reading, book signing and celebration featuring a new book from University of Alabama Press, “This Bright Light of Ours: Stories from the Voting Rights Fight” by Maria Gitin.
In 1965, as a 19 year-old freshman at San Francisco State College, shortly after viewing footage of the "Bloody Sunday" attack on peaceful marchers in Selma, Maria Gitin volunteered for the Summer Community Organizing and Political Education project (SCOPE), a project of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, (SCLC). She attended an intensive training in Atlanta led by Martin Luther King, Hosea Williams, Septima Clark, Dorothy Cotton and other now-legendary civil rights leaders before being assigned to Wilcox County to assist local African American activists with voter education and registration as part of a small team of white college students.
At the time, Wilcox was considered by civil rights leaders to be one of the most violently segregated counties in Alabama, but the voting drive was in full force. Ms Gitin’s book covers her life-changing experiences including speeches at mass meetings, her arrest, and how she learned the role of whites in the African American freedom fight. She never forgot the courageous local residents who risked their lives to work side by side with white students. Determined to create a channel for the unheard voices of the grassroots freedom fighters that formed the backbone of the civil rights movement, Maria revisited Wilcox County and devoted six years to completion of This Bright Light of Ours, which is based on her original letters, conversations with her co-workers and with more than thirty activists and residents from Wilcox County.
At the Camden event, recognized King scholar,author, and Camden native, Rev Dr LV Baldwin, will offeran invocation. Ms Gitin will speak and show slides followed by a hosted reception, book sale and signing. Individuals and their families who are quoted in the book will be honored in a group presentation. Participants are also invited to walk together Walk under Wilcox County Freedom Fighters banner in the Selma Jubilee bridge re-enactment ceremony on Sunday March 9 in Selma.
Dr. Clayborne Carson, director of the King Institute at Stanford University,praised Gitin’s “This Bright Light of Ours”: “Maria Gitin's lively and candid memoir-history answers the call for a grassroots rather than leader-centered account of the southern struggle against the Jim Crow system. “This Bright Light of Ours” helps readers understand how millions of black Southerners finally became American citizens.”
Rev. Dr. Robert M FranklinPresident-Emeritus of Morehouse College stated, “This is an important work about a neglected period of the Civil Rights Movement, the 1965 Voting Rights Movement. Gitin clearly communicates her commitment to civil rights and social justice by presenting us with the fresh voices of unheralded community leaders in Wilcox County, AL. It adds wonderful new insight and texture to the story of how courageous Americans transformed their community and the country.”
Contact information:
More about Maria Gitin and “This Bright Light of Ours”:
Maria Gitin 831.708.2560 or 831.334.6176
Send Release with official UAP Author photo. Credit: Emily Avila
More about University of Alabama Press: Shana insert contact here