Carson-Newman to hold open house for Civil Rights exhibit, Sunday, Jan 31

(Jan. 26, 2016) – Carson-Newman University will hold an open house for a new student-curated exhibit focusing on the 50th anniversary of 1965 Voting Rights Act. The event, hosted in the University’s Appalachian Cultural Center, will be held Sunday, Jan. 31, from 3 – 5 p.m. The afternoon’s program will be from 3:30 – 4:15 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

Special guests slated to attend include:

• Alverenne Bridgeforth – a member of African American Heritage Alliance (AAHA). Bridgeforth was a student at North Carolina’s Bennet College when the famous lunch counter sit-in and marches began in Greensboro.

• Candie Carawan – she along with her late husband, Guy, popularized “We Shall Overcome” and other Freedom Songs during the Civil Rights Movement.

• Dr. Randall O’Brien – Carson-Newman’s president will share about his experience growing up in McComb, Mississippi in the 1960s.

The “We March with Selma” exhibit is part of the University’s “A Simple Justice: The Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act,” a year-long observance of the historical event taking place during the 2015-16 academic year.

The U.S. Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6, 1965. The act meant to enforce the 15th Amendment of the Constitution ratified by Congress in 1870.

The bill was created to guarantee African-Americans the right to vote and made it illegal to impose restrictions on any federal, state and local elections that were designed to deny the vote to blacks.