Nazism, civil rights topic of forum

How World War II evils led to the development of America's civil rights movement will be examined during a major fall event at Mississippi State.

"Nazism, the Holocaust and the Genesis of the Modern Civil Rights Movement" is the topic of the 15th annual Presidential Forum on Turning Points in History. All sessions of the Nov. 12-13 public program will be held in the auditorium of Simrall Hall.

The forum is sponsored by the History Department, with partial funding provided by the Mississippi Humanities Council and the College of Arts and Sciences.

Leading discussions at separate sessions will be historians: Harvard Sitkoff of the University of New Hampshire, a former visiting professor at Regent's College in England; Leonard Dinnerstein, director of Judaic studies at the University of Arizona; and George Wright, provost at the University of Texas at Arlington.

Sitkoff is author of "The Struggle for Black Equality, 1954-1992" (Hill and Wang, 1993), while Dinnerstein is author of "Anti-Semitism in America" (Oxford University Press, 1994). Wright is author of "A History of Blacks in Kentucky: In Pursuit of Equality" (Kentucky Historical Society, 1992).

Joining the visiting professors for a concluding panel discussion will be three special guests. Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark, who holds a doctorate in history from Mississippi State, will serve as moderator for the panel and its seventh member.

Forum sessions include:

• Nov. 12, 7 p.m., Sitkoff speaking on "Black American Anti-Nazism and the Impetus for Social Restructuring in the United States."
• Nov. 13, 10 a.m., Dinnerstein will discuss "American Jews and the Challenge to Racial Intolerance in the United States."
• 2 p.m., Wright's topic will be "The Holocaust: A Lesson for African-Americans."
• 7 p.m., the panel will attempt to put in perspective Nazism's impact on the American civil rights movement. Joining the visiting professors will be:
  • Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Herbert Carter of Tuskeegee, Ala., a veteran fighter pilot and member of the original all-black 99th Fighter Squadron--the famed "Tuskegee Airmen" of World War II.
  • Lucy Money of Vicksburg, widow of Lt. Col. E. Money, another Tuskegee Airman.
  • Mississippi State historian Johnpeter Grill, an authority on the rise of Nazism in his native Germany.

For complete information on the forum, telephone 325-3604.