Two veterans of the civil rights movement on Friday will explore various mass movements and offer Northern Kentuckians insight on how to organize for positive change.
Julian Bond, a distinguished scholar-in-residence at American University in Washington, D.C., and a faculty member at the University of Virginia, and Anne Braden, 73, a visiting professor at Northern Kentucky University, will deliver a presentation titled ''Where Do We Go From Here: Community or Chaos? - A Contemporary Perspective.''
The free program, which is open to the public, will be at NKU's University Center Theater from 2 to 3 p.m.; and at the Northern Kentucky Community Center from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
Asked what local communities can do to improve race relations, Mr. Bond said during a phone interview last week that every resident must choose a task - large or small - to work on that will better the community in some way.
In the meantime, Mr. Bond said: ''I think it takes some acknowledgement by white people that they are in a position to do something about (racism).''
But African-Americans ''have got to make the effort to get our money back,'' said Mr. Bond, adding that more blacks need to ''register to vote and join organizations'' to make a difference.
Mary Middleton, former northern-area coordinator for Church Women United, one of several co-sponsors of the event, said she hopes the program will ''make things better as far as race relations go.''
The Rev. Sheldon A. Rox, field office supervisor of the Northern Kentucky office of the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, said: ''Their message will be that we have not yet arrived, and that there is still work to be done in human and civil rights.''
Mr. Bond, 57, a former student of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at Morehouse College in 1961, said he will also make some predictions about the future of the civil rights movement - something he said many people view as a ''1960s-type thing.''
The civil rights movement exists today, said Mr. Bond, in the form of chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and efforts of individuals to combat discrimination.
''We need people on the local level who are willing to fight the local fight,'' the Rev. Mr. Rox said about civil and human rights.
Other sponsors of the event are NKU, the Northern Kentucky Community Center, the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights, the Northern Kentucky Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, the Northern Kentucky Interfaith Commission, Barnes Temple AME Church, Forward Quest Inc. and Young Democrats of Northern Kentucky, with funding support from the Kentucky Humanities Council.
