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"ACLU To Honor Civil Rights Historian Raymond Arsenault"
April 2003 Edition of the ACLU of Florida Newsletter
By Elaina Ozrovitz
Development Director
Please take a moment today to make your reservations for the 24th Annual Nelson Poynter Civil Liberties Award Dinner. The annual ACLU Foundation of Florida dinner will be held on the evening of Saturday, May 10, 2003 at the Hilton St. Petersburg.
The Nelson Poynter Civil Liberties Award is presented every year to an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of civil liberties. It is named for Nelson Poynter, the former editor of the St. Petersburg Times for whom the Bill of Rights was a document that had a daily life. Poynter fought racial segregation in the South, defended a free press, and exposed corruption.
The evening will feature the presentation of the Nelson Poynter Civil Liberties Award to Raymond Arsenault, the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and Director of the University Honors College at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg.
Arsenault is a nationally acclaimed chronicler of the civil rights movement. His most recent book is The Changing South of Gene Patterson, and he is currently completing Freedom Riders, which will be published by Oxford University Press next spring.
Arsenault has also been a tireless leader in Florida for the cause of civil liberties. He has served as president of both the ACLU's Pinellas County Chapter and the ACLU of Florida.
Following the award presentation, Arsenault will serve as moderator for a panel of veterans of the civil rights movement, journalists and historians for a discussion on how the civil rights movement evolved in Florida, and how it has been remembered and represented.
The panelists will include John Hope Franklin, Eugene C. Patterson, and Bernard LaFayette, Jr. Franklin is a professor emeritus at Duke University and one of the world's most distinguished scholars of the American South and the African-American experience. He is the author of From Slavery to Freedom and numerous other influential books and articles. He recently served as the chairperson of President Clinton's special commission on race in America.
Eugene C. Patterson is the former editor of the St. Petersburg Times, the Washington Post, and the Atlanta Constitution. A renowned editorial writer, especially on matters of race and religion, he is the subject of a recent book, The Changing South of Gene Patterson: Journalism and Civil Rights, 1960-1968, edited by Roy Peter Clark and Raymond Arsenault.
Bernard LaFayette Jr., a native of Tampa, is a former Freedom Rider and leader in the movement for nonviolent social change. During the 1960s he was a leading figure in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and today he devotes most of his time to international workshops on nonviolence.
The format promises to provide lively interaction between our panelists and dinner guests. Dinner begins at 8 p.m., preceded by a poolside open bar cocktail and hors d'oeuvres reception at 6:30 p.m. Tickets for the evening are $150 per person. Sponsorships are available. Please contact Elaina Ozrovitz to make your reservation today at (305) 576-2337, ext. 13, or via email at eozrovitz@aclufl.org.
