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Human rights will be the focus with the two remaining speakers in the 2001-02 UA Forum Speaker Series at E.J. Thomas Performing Arts Hall this month.
Noted author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, who won the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace for his human rights activities, will speak of his experiences and life’s mission on April 15. Judy Shepard, who has become a national advocate for safer schools and community environments since losing her son, Matthew, in a hate crime, will speak on April 23.
Both lectures begin at 8 p.m. in E.J. Thomas Hall. With a UA ID, the cost for each event is $4. For more information, call the E.J. Thomas Hall ticket office at ext. 7570.
Sponsors for the UA Forum Speaker Series are the Office of the President and the Office of the Senior Vice President and Provost, as well as the John S. Knight Lecture Series, the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and the University Program Board.
Wiesel, whose visit is sponsored by the University Honors Program, has worked on behalf of oppressed people for much of his adult life.
Born in Sighet, Transylvania, (now part of Romania) Weisel was 15 when his family was deported to Auschwitz, a Nazi concentration camp. By the end of World War II, all that remained of the family was Weisel and two of his sisters.
After the war, Wiesel became a journalist. He eventually wrote about his experiences in the death camps in the internationally acclaimed memoir, “La Nuit” or “Night.” The book has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Now the author of more than 40 books of nonfiction and fiction, Wiesel has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University since 1976. His Holocaust experiences have led him to defend human rights and peace throughout the world.
In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed him chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, Wiesel became the founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. He is the recipient of such honors as Presidential Medal of Freedom, the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal and the Medal of Liberty Award.
After winning the Nobel Prize, Weisel and his wife, Marion, established the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. Its mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to advance the cause of human rights by creating forums for the discussion and resolution of urgent ethical issues.
Judy Shepard’s visit is sponsored by the University Program Board, Coming Together Project, the Pride Center and the Victim Assistance Program of Akron.
Shepard would be the first to describe herself as a quiet Wyoming housewife — that is until her 21-year-old son, Matthew, was murdered in 1998 in an anti-gay hate crime. She and her husband, Dennis, channeled their grief and anger by establishing the Matthew Shepard Foundation to champion the social justice issues their son cared about. She serves as its executive director and all proceeds from her speeches go to support the efforts of the foundation.
The prevention of hate crimes has become the focus of Shepard’s efforts. She has lobbied in support of hate crime legislation in Washington, D.C., and she speaks to audiences nationwide about what they can do to make their schools and communities safer, regardless of their race, sex, religion or sexual orientation.
“I feel Matthew with me every day, or I would not be able to do this,” Shepard has said. “We just hope we’re doing what he would want us to do. We realize that we must use the voice his death has given us. I realize that what I can try and accomplish is to make people aware. We get so complacent in our lives that we forget not everyone is safe, and frequently, it is our children who aren’t safe.”
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