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Columns::March 11, 2002
New partnership chronicles ‘unsung foot soldiers’
Multicultural studies pioneer will give Tresp Lecture
Annual Nunn Forum focuses on commercialization of the academy
$16,000 in prize money awarded at first marketing research competition
National search gets under way for new grad dean
Veterinary Medicine students take part in Spay Day
Looking for the cheese
‘Taste’ of research whetted library director’s appetite for archival work
Health center earns JCAHO accreditation
Retirees
Newsmakers
Forum essay: To understand us, others must learn English. . .
Tenor of the matter
Campus News
Civil rights scholar will deliver annual Holmes-Hunter Lecture
By Allyson Mann
tiny@uga.edu
Civil rights scholar Maurice C. Daniels, associate professor and director of the master’s in social work program at UGA, will deliver the 17th annual Holmes-Hunter Lecture March 12 at 2 p.m. in the Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
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| UGA President Michael F. Adams (left) and Maurice Daniels, associate professor and director of the master’s in social work program. |
The Holmes-Hunter Lecture was established in 1985 to honor Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault, the first African-American students admitted to UGA. The lecture focuses on race relations, black history or aspects of higher education with implications for race relations. Past lecturers have included Andrew Young, Cynthia Tucker, Vernon Jordan and Jesse Jackson.
Daniels is author of Horace T. Ward: Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights Advocacy, and Jurisprudence, published by Clark Atlanta University Press. The book documents Ward’s unsuccessful struggle to gain admission to the UGA School of Law during the 1950s and chronicles his later accomplishments as an attorney, legislator and jurist, including his appointment as the first African-American federal judge in Georgia.
Ward, now a senior federal court judge in Atlanta, earned a law degree at Northwestern University and served on the legal team that represented Holmes and Hunter in their successful bid to enroll at UGA. Ward is also the subject of Foot Soldier for Equal Justice, an award-winning two-part documentary for which Daniels served as executive producer and senior researcher. The documentary explores Ward’s story, the history of desegregation at UGA, and the NAACP’s success at challenging segregation in higher education.
Daniels earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree in social work and a doctoral degree in higher education administration at Indiana University. He teaches in the areas of civil rights and community empowerment and is founder and director of the Foot Soldier Project for Civil Rights Studies and Research at UGA (see story at right). The Foot Soldier Project is currently developing a documentary titled The Life and Times of Dr. Hamilton Holmes Sr. In 2000, Daniels was selected as a Senior Teaching Fellow at UGA, and in 2001 the Athens-Clarke County NAACP honored him with a special African American History and Social Justice Award.
During Daniels’s eight years as director of the Patricia Roberts Harris Fellowship Program, the U.S. Department of Education awarded more than $1 million to UGA to support graduate and professional students. In addition to his scholarly work, Daniels is active in civil rights and social reform organizations such as the NAACP, Habitat for Humanity, and UGA’s Black Faculty and Staff Organization.
Holmes and Hunter-Gault enrolled at UGA in 1961 and graduated in 1963. Holmes, who passed away in 1995, was the first African-American student admitted to Emory University’s School of Medicine. He became an orthopedic surgeon in Atlanta and was associate dean of the Emory University School of Medicine and chairman of the orthopedic unit of Grady Memorial Hospital. In 1983, he became the first African-American trustee for the UGA Foundation.
Hunter-Gault wrote for The New York Times before joining PBS’s MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour, a program with which she was long affiliated. Following an assignment as chief Africa correspondent for National Public Radio, she accepted her current position as CNN International bureau chief in Johannesburg. Her numerous honors include two Peabody Awards for her coverage of Africa. Her memoir, In My Place, was published in 1992. Last year, Hunter-Gault delivered the Holmes-Hunter Lecture during UGA’s commemoration of the 40th anniversary of desegregation. During the commemoration, the Academic Building where she and Holmes registered for classes was renamed the Holmes-Hunter Academic Building. |
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