Public Policy Lecture Series

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Michael S. and Kitty Dukakis Public Policy Lecture

ANDREW YOUNG

"A Continuing Legacy"

7 p.m. Wednesday, November 13, 2013

MCLA Church Street Center, Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium

Free and open to the public

Information: 413.662.5391

Andrew Young has always viewed his career through the lens of his first career- that of ordained minister. His work for civil and human rights, his many years in public office as Congressman, United Nations  Ambassador and Mayor, his leadership of the Atlanta Olympic Games, his advocacy of public purpose capitalism through Goodworks International, and the establishment of the Andrew J. Young Foundation are all a response to his call to serve.

Ambassador Young brings a unique  perspective formed by his wealth of  experience in national and global leadership to his focus on the challenges of this era. He confronted segregation with Dr. Martin LutherKing, Jr. and galvanized a movement that transformed a nation through non-violence. Young was a key strategist and negotiator during the Civil Rights Campaigns in  Birmingham and Selma that resulted in the
passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He was elected to the U.S. Congress in 1972 and served on the Banking and Urban Affairs and Rules Committees, sponsoring legislation that established a U.S. Institute for Peace, The African Development Bank, and the Chattahoochee River National Park, while negotiating federal funds for MARTA, the Atlanta highway system and a new international airport for Atlanta. His support for Jimmy Carter helped to win the Democratic Party nomination and election to the Presidency. In 1977, President Carter appointed him to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations where he negotiated an end to white-minority rule in Namibia and Zimbabwe and brought Carter's emphasis on human rights to international diplomacy.

Ambassador Young's leadership as Mayor of Atlanta took place during a recession and a reduction in federal funds for cities. He turned to international markets for investments in Atlanta attracting 1100 new
businesses, $70 billion in investment adding 1 million jobs to the region. He developed public-private partnerships to leverage public dollars for the preservation of Zoo Atlanta.
Ambassador Young led the effort to bring the Centennial Olympic Games to Atlanta and as Co-Chair of the Atlanta Olympic Committee, he oversaw the largest Olympic Games in history- in the number of countries, the number of athletes and the number of spectators. He was awarded the Olympic Order, the highest award of the Olympic Movement.

Ambassador Young has received honorary degrees from more than 60 universities and colleges in the U.S. and abroad. President Jimmy Carter awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom and France awarded him the Legion d'honneur, the greatest civilian honor in each nation. President William J. Clinton appointed him the founding chair of the Southern African Enterprise Development Fund. He serves on a number of boards, including: the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change, Barrick Gold,
the United Nations Foundation, and the Atlanta Falcons and the Andrew Young School for Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

Andrew Young Presents, the  Emmy-nominated, nationally syndicated series of specials produced by
Ambassador Young through the Andrew J. Young Foundation, Inc. is seen in nearly 90 American markets and around the world through the Armed Services Network. He is the author of two books A Way Out of
No Way and An Easy Burden.

Ambassador Young and his wife, the educator and civic leader Carolyn McClain Young, live in Atlanta. He is the father of 4 and grandfather of 6.

The Public Policy Lecture Series is made possible through the generosity of the Ruth Proud Charitable Trust.

Spring 2014 Public Policy Lecture 

GLORIA STEINEM

"The Progression of Feminism: Where are we going?"

7 p.m. Tuesday, March 4, 2014

MCLA Church Street Center, Eleanor Furst Roberts Auditorium

Free and open to the public

Information: 413.662.5391

Gloria Steinem is a writer, lecturer, editor, and feminist activist. She travels in this and other countries as an organizer and lecturer and is a frequent media spokeswoman on issues of
equality. She is particularly interested in the shared origins of sex and race caste  systems, gender roles and child abuse as roots of violence, non-violent conflict resolution, the cultures of indigenous peoples, and organizing across boundaries for peace and justice.

In 1972, she co-founded Ms. magazine, and remained one of its editors for fifteen years. She continues to serve as a consulting editor for Ms., and was instrumental in the magazine's move to join and be published
by the Feminist Majority Foundation. In 1968, she had helped to found New York magazine, where she was a political columnist and wrote feature articles. As a freelance writer, she was published in Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, and women's magazines as well as for publications in other countries. She has produced a documentary on child abuse for HBO, a feature film about the death penalty for Lifetime, and been the subject of profiles on Lifetime and Showtime.

Her books include the bestsellers Revolution from Within: A Book of Self-Esteem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions, Moving Beyond Words, and Marilyn: Norma Jean, on the life of Marilyn Monroe. Her writing also appears in many anthologies and textbooks, and she was an editor of Houghton Mifflin's The Reader's Companion to U.S. Women's History.

Ms. Steinem helped to found the Women's Action Alliance, a pioneering national information center that specialized in nonsexist, multiracial children's education, and the National Women's Political Caucus, a
group that continues to work to advance the numbers of pro-equality women in elected and appointed office at a national and state level. She was president and co-founder of Voters for Choice, a pro-choice political action committee for twenty-five years, then with the Planned Parenthood Action Fund when it
merged with VFC for the 2004 elections. She was also co-founder and serves on the board of Choice USA, a national organization that supports young pro-choice leadership and works to preserve comprehensive sex education in schools. She was the founding president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national multi-racial, multi-issue fund that supports grassroots projects to empower women and girls, and also a founder of its Take Our Daughters to Work Day, a first national day devoted to girls that has now become an institution here and in other countries. She was a member of the Beyond Racism Initiative, a three-year effort on the part of activists and experts from South Africa, Brazil and the United States to compare the racial patterns of those three countries and to learn cross-nationally. Now, she is working with the Sophia Smith Collection at Smith College on a project to document the grassroots origins of the U.S. women's movement.

As a writer, Ms. Steinem has received the Penney-Missouri Journalism Award, the Front Page and Clarion awards, National Magazine awards, an Emmy Citation for excellence in television writing, the Women's Sports Journalism Award, the Lifetime Achievement in Journalism Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, the Society of Writers Award from the United Nations, and most recently, the University of Missouri School of Journalism Award for Distinguished Service in Journalism.

Ms. Steinem graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College in 1956, and then spent two years in India on a Chester Bowles Fellowship. She wrote for Indian publications, and was influenced by Gandhian activism.
She also received the first Doctorate of Human Justice awarded by Simmons College, the Bill of Rights Award from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Gay Rights Advocates Award, the Liberty award of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Ceres Medal from the United Nations, and a number of honorary degrees. Parenting magazine selected her for its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 for her work in promoting girls' self-esteem, and Biography magazine listed
her as one of the 25 most influential women in America. In 1993, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. She has been the subject of two biographical television documentaries, and The Education of a Woman, a biography written by Carolyn Heilbrun.

In 1993, her concern with child abuse led her to co-produce and narrate an Emmy Award winning TV documentary for HBO, Multiple Personalities: The Search for Deadly Memories. With Rosilyn Heller, she also co-produced an original 1993 TV movie for Lifetime, Better Off Dead, which examined the parallel forces that both oppose abortion and support the death penalty.

She now lives in New York City, and is currently at work on Road to the Heart: America As if Everyone Mattered, a book about her more than thirty years on the road as a feminist organizer. She is also writing for other books and publications and co-founded the Women's Media Center in 2004.

The Public Policy Lecture Series is made possible through the generosity of the Ruth Proud Charitable Trust.