Lonnie King To Discuss Civil Rights And Social Work Practice in Lecture Series

This Tuesday, February 14, 2012, at 1:30 PM in the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium at the Georgia Museum of Art, guest speaker Lonnie King will present the School of Social Work's  second lecture in the "The Civil Rights Movement and the Practice of Social Work" series. 

Lonnie C. King, Jr. is a founding member of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and one of the authors of “An Appeal for Human Rights,” published March 9, 1960 in various Atlanta area newspapers, which kicked off the Atlanta Student Movement. Days after the appeal was published, King, along with friend Julian Bond and others, helped organize nonviolent sit-ins and boycotts around the city. King was the plaintiff in the law suit that desegregated all court houses, public parks, swimming pools and recreational centers in Atlanta.  He has received countless recognitions and honors for his role in the civil rights movement. 

King is the former president of the Atlanta chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and was responsible for recruiting Alonzo Crim, Ph.D. to serve as the first African American superintendent in the South. He is passionate about education and has held teaching positions from the elementary to the collegiate level.  King opened the Peachtree Hope Charter School in the city of Atlanta in 2010. He plans to organize several more charter schools throughout the state in the neighborhoods where students are not achieving. 

King graduated from Morehouse College in 1969 and earned a masters degree in public administration from the University of Baltimore.  He still lives in Atlanta and continues his involvement in the civil rights movement through his work commemorating the movement and working with disadvantaged Atlanta youth. He is currently teaching history at Georgia State University and completing his Ph.D., also in history.

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Preston King Discusses The Civil Rights Movement and the Practice of Social Work

On Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at the M. Smith Griffith Auditorium at the Georgia Museum of Art, The School of Social Work hosted a lecture by noted civil rights scholar Preston King. The lecture was part of the course, “The Civil Rights Movement and the Practice of Social Work” taught by the inaugural Donald L. Hollowell Professor of Social Justice and Civil Rights Studies, Obie Clayton, Jr.

Preston King, a prolific and widely respected political philosopher and civil rights icon, earned his undergraduate degree in history from Fisk University in Nashville, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1956. A native of Albany, GA, King received military service deferments to continue his studies until the Albany draft board discovered he was African American. He lived abroad in exile for nearly 40 years after he was convicted of draft evasion in 1961. King spent his life building a distinguished academic career around the world. He received his Ph.D. from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1966. 

King returned to the U.S. in 2000 when he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton. He now lives in Atlanta, where he is affiliated with both Morehouse College and Emory University. He serves as scholar-in-residence at the Leadership Center at Morehouse. At Emory, where he serves as distinguished professor of political philosophy, he also is editor of Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, which he founded.

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