Over the past decade, the Institute’s mission - promoting intercultural understanding through public scholarship – has brought more than 15,000 individuals to its programs. The following is a summary of many of those programs.

• An Evening with Annette Gordon-Reed. Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family and a history professor at Rutgers-Newark, spoke about her acclaimed latest book in a special Oct. 21 appearance on campus at the Dana Room, in the John Cotton Dana library. The Hemingses of Monticello has just been selected as a non-fiction finalist for the National Book Awards. Gordon-Reed participated in a one-on-one interview with Dr. Jan Ellen Lewis, Professor of History and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Rutgers-Newark, and she signed copies of her book, which were available for sale following the interview. The talk and reception were presented by the Institute and co-sponsored by the Institute, the Office of the Chancellor, FAS-N Office of the Dean, Department of History, Department of African American and African Studies, Graduate Program in American Studies, and the Organization of Black Faculty and Staff.

• A Synthesis of Spirit: Afro-Brazilian Music and Dance. The New York-based ensemble Ologundê presented a performance of Afro-Brazilian music, dance, and martial arts on the Rutgers-Newark campus on Sept. 24, 2008. This was the fourth concert in the Institute’s ethnic dance series, which has become an annual event since 2005. The free performance was held in the Bradley Hall Theater and drew a capacity crowd to the campus. Following the performance, a reception featuring Latin cuisine was served in the theater lobby.

• 40th Anniversary Commemorative Plaque. On July 23, 2008, Mayor Cory A. Booker was joined by Dr. Clement Price and a host of dignitaries, community leaders, and residents at a ceremony to unveil a special plaque in commemoration of the lives lost during a violent period of civil unrest in the City of Newark during the summer of 1967. Speaking at the Fourth District Police Precinct at 10 17th Avenue – the site where the outbreak of violence began 41 years ago – Mayor Booker stood with Dr. Price to unveil the commemorative plaque, dedicating it to those whose lives were tragically lost, and vowing never to forget the tragedy and violence that threatened to devastate the City of Newark and its residents. The disturbances of 1967, which lasted 5 days, claimed the lives of 26 people, injured over 700 residents, and left over 160 stores throughout the city destroyed.

• A Tribute to Marion Bolden. Walking the Walk: The Road to Student Success. The Institute sponsored this civic presentation by Dr. Marion A. Bolden, Superintendent of the Newark Public Schools on June 23, 2008 at The Newark Museum. The event, attended by over 200 people, honored Dr. Marion Bolden’s tenure as superintendent of the Newark Public Schools, and provided her an opportunity to speak to a cross section of the Newark community about the changing nature of public education in the city on the occasion of the near end of her superintendence. Dr. Bolden served the Newark School District as Superintendent from July 1999 to June 2008, making important strides in transforming the public schools education.

• Private Grief and Public Mourning in African American Life and History. The 28th annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series was held on February 16, 2008 at the Paul Robeson Campus Center on the Rutgers Newark Campus. The conference acknowledged the deep sadness and enduring commemorative efforts associated with post-World War II African American history, especially as that history related to the 1968 death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the loss of so many others imperiled during the years of the modern Civil Rights Movement. The keynote speaker was Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, Professor Emerita of history at American University and a scholar and artist in African American cultural history and music. Afternoon speakers included Professor John Vlach, George Washington University, Washington, DC; Professor Kim Lacy Rogers, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA; and Dr. Juanita Moore, president and CEO, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI.

• Teachers As Scholars. In November, 2007, the Institute launched its third season of Teachers as Scholars, “Fire Bells in the Night: Conflict and Reconciliation in American History,” a collaboration between the Institute and the Newark Public Schools that brought Newark K-12 teachers to the Rutgers-Newark campus for a series of two-day seminars in the humanities, social sciences and the arts, taught by Rutgers faculty. The first five seminars took place in November-December 2007; a spring session was presented in March 2008. The program is funded by a grant from the New Jersey Council for the Humanities, through the National Endowment for the Humanities “We the People” initiative. The seminars are free to Newark Public School teachers, and teachers may enroll in any seminar they wish, regardless of the grade level or subject they teach, and they are eligible to earn professional development hours with the New Jersey Department of Education.

• U.S. History Saturday Academy. In November, 2007 with the support of a grant from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Institute and Department of History, Rutgers-Newark launched the second year of the U.S. History Saturday Academy for Newark high school students. Students who enroll in the elective, tuition-free program attend Saturday morning classes on the Rutgers-Newark campus for six sessions offered during over six Saturdays in the spring. All of the teachers in the Saturday Academy are experienced middle school and high school educators. The spring session begins on Saturday, April 5, 2008.

• Enough About the Cab Driver, Already: Forty Years of Newark Riot Coverage. On November 7, 2007 in the John Cotton Dana Library, guest speaker and Star Ledger reporter Brad Parks discussed the media’s construction of Newark and its riots over the years. His series of articles on the Newark riots which was a special supplement of the paper in July 2007 broke new ground in its retrospect of Newark’s civil unrest. Mr. Parks had printed copies available at the lecture.

• We Should Have Listened: The Lilley Commission's 1968 New Vision of New Jersey. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of New Jersey’s 1967 civil disorders, the Institute in conjunction with the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of the New Jersey Department of State, and The Newark Museum presented a special panel discussion on October 30, 2007 at The Newark Museum. The program featured a symbolic “reconvening” of the surviving members of the Governor’s Select Commission on Civil Disorders, also called the Lilley Commission. Created originally in response to the Newark riots of 1967, the Lilley Commission was comprised of civic and corporate leaders who produced a report on Newark’s poverty, race relations, and economic status, concluding with recommendations for change. This program re-visited the recommendations made in the 1968 Report For Action and the Commission’s vision of reform in many areas of civic life. The distinguished panel of citizens and former members of the Lilley Commission included: the Honorable John J. Gibbons, Commission member; Sanford M. Jaffe, Executive Director, Robert B. Goldmann, Deputy Director, Jennie D. Brown, Research Associate, and Dr. Julia M. Miller, Research Associate. The panel was moderated by Ronald Smothers, former reporter for The New York Times and currently distinguished professor of journalism at the University of Delaware.

• NYU 2007 Conference on Social Theory, Politics and the Arts. Roundtable: Straight Outta Newark: Urban Creativity and Culture Forty Years After 1967. On October 12, 2007 at the NYU Kimmel Center in NYC, a panel comprised of first and second generation arts and cultural leaders in Newark in the years following the nearly catastrophic civil disorders of July 1967, explored how a backdrop of urban crisis can inspire ingenuity, cultural democracy, and community engagement in cultural organizations. While many American cities witnessed civil discord and violence during the summer of 1967, few were as adversely affected as Newark by the resonance of ill will, adverse publicity and enduring decay. The panelists, leading representatives of Newark’s most important, yet very different, cultural organizations located the creative sector at the center of Newark’s civic revitalization. The roundtable was moderated by Institute director Dr. Clement Alexander Price and consisted of Cephas Brown (WBGO Jazz FM Radio), Mary Sue Sweeney Price (The Newark Museum), Victor Davson (Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art), Dr. Jorge Daniel Veneciano (Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University-Newark) and Linwood Oglesby (Newark Arts Council).

• The Long Hot Summers in Retrospect, Part II: Urban Unrest in 1960s New Jersey. On October 6, 2007, the institute in conjunction with The New Jersey Historical Society held a one-day conference at the Rutgers Newark campus that explored race, ethnicity, politics, and the urban environment in post-1960s New Jersey. A series of four panel discussions addressed the spread of urban rebellion in the 1960s, the immediate aftermath, the role of politics and civic responsibility, and the nurturing of a new paradigm. The keynote speaker for the conference was Roger Wilkins, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Clarence J. Robinson, Professor of History and American Culture at George Mason University. This event was followed by a subsequent publication.

• Ethnic Dance Series: African Dance Concert. The Institute showcased the rich panoply of African Dance in the third concert of its ethnic dance series on the Newark campus Wednesday, September 26, 2007. Rooted in Culture: Dances of Africa and the African Diaspora, featured a live performance by Kulu Mele African American Dance Ensemble, the longest-lived African Dance company in Philadelphia. The performance in Bradley Hall Theater included music and dance of Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and African America. The hour-long program was followed by a reception in the theater lobby featuring authentic foods from Nigeria.

• A Conversation in Commemoration of Newark’s 1967 Summer of Discontent. On July 12, 2007 – exactly 40 years after the start of civil unrest in Newark in 1967 – the Institute sponsored a public conversation between former Governor Brendan Byrne and Essex County Prosecutor Paula Dow that explored Governor Byrne’s memory of the 1967 disorders, when he was Essex County Prosecutor. The hour-long conversation took place in the Trustees Room of the Ballantine House, Newark Museum. It was attended by a standing-room-only crowd of invited guests, dignitaries, and concerned citizens, and was videotaped professionally for later broadcast on NJN public television.

• City of Promise. In April 2007, the Institute in cooperation with the Urban Studies Minor Program presented a public screening of the documentary film, City of Promise. This film, which originally aired on public television in 1995, combines rare archival footage and interviews with activists and public officials to chronicle the rising economic, political and racial tensions that led to the outbreak of civil disorders in the city of Newark during the summer of 1967. It is essential viewing for those who wish to understand the origins of the urban unrest that took place in Newark during that long hot summer nearly forty years ago.

• Time Longer Than Rope: Historical Memory and the Black Atlantic. The 27th annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series acknowledged the centrality of memory in understanding the complexity of African American life after the Civil War, the role of memory in societies on the African continent and those in the Americas, and the use of memory in contemporary scholarship on the Black Atlantic. David Blight, professor of American History and director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University, presented the keynote Marion Thompson Wright Lecture. Professor Blight is the nation’s foremost historian on memory and its intersection with African American historical narratives. In a special presentation, Lonnie G. Bunch III, director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution, was honored with the first Marion Thompson Wright Award for distinguished service to the public in the field of African-American life and history.

• Ethnic Dance Series: Indian Dance. In October, 2006, the Institute sponsored a performance of Indian dance by Surati for Performing Arts, a New Jersey-based dance troupe under the direction of Rimli Roy, as part of its continuing Ethnic Dance series at Bradley Hall Theater on the Rutgers-Newark campus. The concert featured examples of Indian dance from ancient to contemporary forms: traditional Indian classical dances like Odissi, Bharatnatyam, Manipuri, Kuchipudi and creative, folk and “Bollywood” dances. The program was followed by a reception which featured Indian specialty foods donated by a local Jersey City Indian restaurant.

• The Once and Future Newark. This new documentary film debuted in October, 2006. Produced by Rutgers University in Newark, the film features a number of city sites, as a tour group is hosted by Institute director, Clement Price. Part travelogue, part documentary and part history lesson, the film engages viewers’ interest for personal exploration and discovery of Newark’s fascinating interface of cultures, races, ethnicities, and religions. In May 2007, The Once and Future Newark was honored as Video of the Year by the Garden State Journalists Association.

• U.S. History Saturday Academy. Begun in the fall of 2006, Saturday Academy is a new program being offered by the Institute and the Department of History at Rutgers-Newark, to create new ways to engage high school students in the study of American history. The Saturday Academy is a tuition-free program offering students in grades 9-12 a variety of American History courses, taught over six Saturdays on the Newark campus, during the fall and spring semesters, and instructed by high school and college Social Studies teachers. The goal is to attract students to the study of U.S. history through a wide range of methods by which historians make sense of the country’s past. Interested students participate in the program free of charge.

• Street Fight. In April of 2006, the Institute sponsored a special public screening of the Academy-Award nominated film, “Street Fight”, hosted by the film’s director, Marshall Curry. The documentary chronicles the hard-fought and often controversial 2002 Newark mayoral election between incumbent Mayor Sharpe James and challenger, Cory Booker.

• The Cadillac Chronicles. In March, 2006, the Institute hosted its first artist-in-residence, photographer Bill Gaskins. The Cadillac Chronicles was the subject of his residency with the Institute, a project in which Gaskins examined the storied relationship between African American men and the Cadillac, while exploring the possibilities of portrait photography. The artist presented his work to the public in April 2007 at the conclusion of his residency.

• Black Creativity and Modern American Life. The 26th anniversary of the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series in February 2006 explored black influence on American culture through African-American literary, dance and musical voices. Cheryl Wall, a literary scholar and professor of English at Rutgers, presented the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture, “Worrying the Line,” which looked at the voices and literary techniques of black women writers.

• Remembering Mrs. Rosa Parks. In January, 2006, the Institute hosted a program to honor civil rights icon Rosa Parks, who had recently passed away. The program included a screening of part 1 of the award-winning civil rights documentary, “Eyes on the Prize” followed by a discussion led by institute director, Dr. Clement Price.

• Ethnic Dance Performance Series: Middle Eastern Dance. In September of 2005, the Institute launched its first annual performance series celebrating ethnic dance with a concert of Middle Eastern Dance, Alf Layla Wa Layla (1001 Nights): Traditional to Contemporary Expressions of Middle Eastern Dance. The free concert was held in Bradley Hall Theater on the Rutgers-Newark campus, and featured performances of folkloric and modern dances from the Middle East by Morocco and the Casbah Dance Experience from New York City. The free program drew an audience of mixed ethnicities from both the campus and larger communities.

• Lessons From the Past. In February, 2005, the Institute celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series with a 2-day conference examining changes in the study and scholarship of African American history. The conference surveyed the evolution and likely future of African American historical scholarship by those who have helped define it over the past 25 years, and featured as its keynote speaker James Oliver Horton, the Benjamin Banneker Professor of American Studies and History at George Washington University. Other speakers over the 2-day lecture series included P. Sterling Stuckey, Nell Irvin Painter and David Roediger.

• The Gustav Heningburg Civic Fellows Program. The Institute established the Heningburg Civic Fellows program in 2004 and again in 2006, as a resource for Newark’s civic leaders who are deeply involved in the city’s revitalization. The program honors Gustav Heningburg, one of the most influential and inspiring civic leaders in Newark, and examined the question, “Why Newark Matters” through a series of colloquia developed to establish partnerships between Newark's civic leaders and distinguished scholars at Rutgers. The Fellows explored new ways to address some of the civic challenges and opportunities that face the city and to expand the University’s involvement in the city's renewal.

• New Jersey State Police Cultural Awareness Training. In 2004, at the behest of the New Jersey State Attorney General, the Institute mounted several cultural awareness sessions for all 2,700 members of the New Jersey State Police. The sessions arose from a consent decree issued by a New Jersey district judge in December 1999. That decree was the settlement of a lawsuit alleging racial profiling brought against the state police, the State of New Jersey and the N.J. Department of Law and Public Safety by then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno. This was the first time in the three-year-old program in cultural education that a single university was given sole responsibility for teaching all the cultural-awareness courses to the entire force.

• Teachers As Scholars. In the spring of 2004, and again in 2005, the Institute launched the Teachers as Scholars program in Newark, collaboration between the Institute and the Newark Public Schools that brings K-12 teachers to the campus for a series of two-day seminars in the humanities, social sciences and the arts. Rutgers-Newark is the first and only Rutgers campus, and only the second university in New Jersey -- along with Princeton -- participating in the national Teachers as Scholars program. The program is funded by the NJ Council for the Humanities, through their “We the People” initiative.

• Conklin Hall Takeover Remembrance. On February 24, 1969, the Black Organization of Students at Rutgers–Newark occupied Conklin Hall for 72 hours to protest the scarcity of black students, black faculty, and programs for economically disadvantaged students. Thirty-five years later, in February 2004, with the campus now known for its diversity, the university commemorated the takeover with reminiscences from those involved in the takeover and a new endowment for the Educational Opportunity Fund. The event included speeches by Rutgers President McCormick, Rutgers-Newark Provost Steven Diner and former student leaders and administrators who participated in the event. The ceremonies concluded with the dedication of a new plague marking the event, which now hangs in the entry way of Conklin Hall.

• Brown V. the Board of Education of Topeka Kansas: A Retrospective. In February, 2004, the 24th Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. the Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court Decision, which ended racial segregation in public schools. Roger Wilkins, distinguished member of the Brown v. Board of Education 50th Anniversary Commission, established by President George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress, delivered the keynote address.

• Newark Reads DuBois. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of W.E.B. Du Bois’ death, and in honor of the centennial anniversary of the publication of his classic work, “The Souls of Black Folk”, the Institute organized a month-long literary event entitled, “Newark Reads Du Bois,” which kicked off at the 23rd Annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series February, 2003. “Newark Reads Du Bois” was comprised of a series of literary events, produced throughout the city, designed to educate and inspire readers of all ages to celebrate Du Bois’ life and groundbreaking work. Two thousand free copies of “The Souls of Black Folk” were distributed to Newark residents through the 10 branches of the Newark Public Library, and special programs for students, adults, and the public focused on Du Bois, his classic text, and the history of African-Americans and the African Diaspora.

• Why Us? Why Here? What Now?: A Town Hall Meeting for Public Television. This program, co-produced by the Institute and New Jersey Network in March 2002, explored what might be called the new realities related to color, culture, national origin and globalization as a result of September 11. Moderated by M. William Howard, Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church, Newark, the panelists included: Richard Langhorne, Director of the Center for Global Change and Governance, Rutgers-Newark; Sadiq Reza, Esq., Associate Professor New York School of Law; Lisa Crooms, Professor, Howard University Law School; and Robin Morgan, author, poet, and community activist. The audience was comprised of individuals from arts, cultural, civic and educational institutions, students and concerned citizens who live, work, and interact in and around the city of Newark

• Old Stories, New Venues: African American History in Public Spaces. In February 2002, the 22nd annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series examined the ways in which America memorializes black history, both in museums and at historic sites, through monuments, historic preservation, photographs or other recordings. It also investigated how the inclusion of black experiences has enriched the nation’s story. Spencer Crew, the executive director and CEO for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, presented the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture.

• Every Wise Woman Buildeth Her House: Sisterhood In the Black Church. This 21st installment of the Marion Thompson Wright lecture series in February, 2001 was inspired by the new historical scholarship that situates black women at the center of African American religious culture and institutional growth. The keynote address by Temple University history Professor Bettye Collier-Thomas, examined "She Hath Done What She Could: African-American Women and Religion."

• A Dynamic Duo: Harry T. Burleigh and Antonin Dvorak. A part of an on-going series and collaboration with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, this spring 2000 program featured a lecture and panel discussion on the friendship and collaborations of the founding father of modern African American music and the famous Czechoslovakian composer.

• Bird Lives: 80th Birthday Celebration of the Music of Charlie Parker. The Institute co-sponsored, along with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a program celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Charlie Parker’s composition “Charlie Parker with Strings.” The Institute invited distinguished Professor of Jazz Studies, James Early (Washington University), to set-up the performance with a lecture on the significance of Parker to modern American culture.

• Time…Africa and the Diaspora. This two-day conference, the 20th anniversary program of the Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, was held at The Newark Museum and the Paul Robeson Campus Center in February 2000. It featured major lectures by Professors Ali Mazrui, Joseph Adjaye, Anne McClintock, and Quincy Troupe, as well as a jazz performance featuring Steve Colson, Oliver Lake, Andrew Cyrille, and Reggie Workman.

• A lecture by Michael Bronski. This on campus event in November 1999 was co-sponsored with the Department of History, Women’s Studies, and the Rutgers Queer Faculty and Staff organization. Dr. Bronski, an independent scholar and journalist, spoke to the title Murdered Innocence: Political Mythologies about Homosexuals, Jews, and Children.

• Opening Windows. During the Fall and Spring semesters, the Institute continued its sponsorship of Opening Windows: Cross-Cultural Psychology and New Perspectives on Ethnicity. This initiative is supported by Rutgers Dialogues grant. It is an experimental workshop series led by the cultural psychologist Dr. Rashmi Jaipal that is directed to Rutgers-Newark undergraduate students. Participants discussed perceptions of cultural difference, the psychology of ethnic/race bigotry, and explored personal strategies designed to challenge intolerance.

• Italians of Newark: Spirit and Memory, Past and Present. Yet another collaboration with several community based organizations, and Seton Hall University, the Institute mounted a half day program in October, 1999, featuring a lecture by the distinguished American historian, Rudolph Vecoli and six community members who shared their powerful memories of growing up, living in, and leaving Newark’s Little Italy. Michael Immerso’s film, Newark’s Little Italy: The Vanished First Ward was also screened.

• Bricks, Mortar, and Spirit II: Newark Through the Prism of Philip Roth. The Institute’s director Dr. Clement Price served as the humanities consultant to this three part series, held at NJPAC in May 1999, which was an enormously successful reassessment of the Newark born novelist and his perception of post-World War II neighborhood change in Newark and the suburbanization of the City’s Jewish population.

• Jefferson and Hemmings. In April 1999, the Institute, in conjunction with the Department of History, presented a lecture by Professor Annette Gordon Reed of New York Law School on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings and the study of race in early American history. Professor Reed is the author of the highly acclaimed book Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings: An American Controversy.

• Salute to Duke Ellington. In April 1999, the Institute, in conjunction with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, sponsored the program Salute to the Duke: A Centennial Celebration, which explored through music and a public lecture the centrality of Mr. Ellington to modern music and culture. The program was held at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.

• Gypsies in Eastern Europe. In April 1999 the Institute sponsored a program entitled, Romas (Gypsies) in Eastern Europe: The Losers of History. Gabor Miklos, a reporter for international newspapers, and Lecturer of Journalism at the Budapest School of Journalism, spoke on the history of Romas and their current plight.

• Making the Beloved Community: A Civil Rights Movement Memoir. In February 1999, the Institute, in conjunction with Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art, sponsored the program Making the Beloved Community: A Civil Rights Memoir, featuring the legendary civil rights leader and activist, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. The program focused on the turbulence in Birmingham, Alabama during 1963, which was marked by street demonstrations that drew international attention and outrage and the tragic deaths of Carol Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Denis McNair in the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church on September 15th.

• African American Women Composers. In March 1999, the Institute, in conjunction with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, sponsored the program A Legacy of Music: African American Women Composers. Supported through a grant from the Rutgers-Newark Cultural Programming Committee, the program featured music by African American women composers, including Florence Price (1888-1953), Dorothy Rudd Moore, and Nkeiru Okoye. The humanities component to this program featured a panel discussion of Mss. Moore and Okoye that was led by Professor Helen Walker Hill.

• On the Meaning of Freedom. This February 1999 program, the 19th annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series, and a major collaborative program with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, brought to the campus Eric Foner, Chinua Achebe, and other outstanding scholars who gave lectures on the centrality of freedom in modern African American and African history.

• Inventing America: Memory, Work & Spirit. The Institute’s director, Clement Alexander Price, served as the historical consultant on this six month long NJPAC community arts and humanities program in 1998-99 and was the chairman of the program’s community advisory board.

• American Jewish Identity. In November 1998, the Institute mounted, in conjunction with the Jewish Historical Society of Metro-West, a half day program titled Beyond the Golden Door: American Jews and the Post-World War II Years. It featured lectures by Professor Deborah Dash Moore, the author of To the Golden Cities: Pursuing the American Jewish Dream in Miami and L.A., and William Helmreich, the author of The Enduring Community: The Jews of Newark and Metrowest. This program explored the transformation of American Jewish identity during the post-World War II years.

• Dia del Maestro (The Day of the Teacher). This April 1998 public program, co-sponsored with The House of Ecuadorian Culture, New Jersey Chapter, featured Dr. Ilan Stavans, Amherst College, and Dr. Luis Mereno, Consul of Ecuador in New York, to acknowledge a traditional Ecuadorian celebration of teachers. It sought to spur public interest in the culture of the rapidly growing Ecuadorian communities in New Jersey.

• City Children and Their Cultures. At the end of the Spring semester 1998 the Institute mounted, in conjunction with the Newark Public Schools, a community oriented lecture and discussion series that explored the transformation of urban youth culture in the United States over the near half-century that followed the end of World War II. Titled City Children and Their Cultures and supported by grants from the Victoria Foundation and the Schumann Fund of New Jersey, the series invited nationally recognized scholars on children to speak to and interact with a cross section of Newark parents, educators, foundation heads, and advocates for children. The objective of the two-part series was to help the major stakeholders in Newark’s youth-oriented sectors contextualize the life of the City’s youngsters, and to foster a sense of intellectual comradery among those stakeholders in a public setting. City Children and Their Cultures was held at the Newark Museum and was free of charge to parents, educators and the public.

• The First Annual Daniel and Elvira Rodrigues Lecture. This lecture, given in April, 1998, by Professor Katherine Vaz, University of California-Davis, inaugurated the first scholarly lecture series in New Jersey on Portuguese American cultural history. Named in honor of two early settlers in the predominantly Luso-American community in Newark’s Iron Bound section, the Rodrigues Lecture was as a prominent feature of the First International Portuguese Literature Conference.

• Paul Robeson: Centennial Observances. A Lecture by the Paul Robeson biographer Lloyd Brown. This afternoon program, held in April 1998, was co-sponsored with the Honors College, Rutgers-Newark. Paul Robeson: The Artist and the Image, A Multi-Media Presentation by Paul Robeson, Jr. This was the first collaborative program for the Institute and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, held in observance of the centennial anniversary of the famous American artist and activist. And, Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Life and Times of Paul Robeson The 18th annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series in February, 1998 also observed the Robeson Centennial anniversary, with keynote lecture by Professor P. Sterling Stuckey.

• Memory and Newark: July 1967. This major half-day conference in November 1997 was the most ambitious program sponsored by the Institute during the current academic year. It was held in observance of the 30th anniversary of the infamous Newark riots of July 1967, and relied upon memory as a vehicle for cross-cultural discourse on race, ethnicity, and community transformation. It featured a keynote memoir by Robert Curvin, vice president of the Ford Foundation, and the President of the Newark chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality in 1967, and six other memoirs given by citizens from the greater Newark metropolitan area.

• From Portugal to Newark: A Community Roundtable on Memories of Immigration. This three hour discussion was held in the fall of 1997 between students, community residents, and faculty on Portuguese American settlement in contemporary Newark and issues in intergenerational ethnic identity.

• The African-American Spirit in Classical Music and the 75th Birthday Tribute to George Walker. These two programs, held at The Newark Museum in the fall of 1997 and 1998 respectively, were part of a four-year-old symposia/performance series co-sponsored with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra and The Newark Museum. The series attracted classical music enthusiasts, black and white ethnic Americans, and students from the greater Newark metropolitan area.

• Female Circumcision: A Cultural Right or Abuse Against Women. This special program, co-sponsored with the African Students Association and mounted on the Newark campus in spring 1997, drew an audience comprised of a cross section of African students, and students and faculty from other cultures, with an interest in the conflict between tradition and modernity in contemporary African societies.

• Small Footprints on the Past: America’s Black Children in Historical Perspective and Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Life and Times of Paul Robeson. These two major day-long conferences, held respectively in February 1997 and 1998, were part of the annual Marion Thompson Wright Lecture Series. Professors Robin D.G. Kelly and P. Sterling Stuckey gave the keynote lectures. The Institute is a co-sponsor, with the New Jersey Historical Commission, of the annual MTW Series, a community based ritual in public scholarship that brings to the university some of the nation's foremost scholars and humanists conversant with African-American and African history and culture. It has become one of the nation's oldest and most prestigious events of its kind.