UW-Eau Claire students will have the upcoming opportunity to hear firsthand the trials and tribulations of a veteran civil rights activist.
Judy Richardson, a producer of the PBS series”Eyes on the Prize,” will speak at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Zorn Arena as a part of The Forum series on campus. The presentation is titled “Eyes on the Prize: The Civil Rights Movement and Its Relevance to Modern America.”
| Forum series: Judy Richardson Time: 7:30 p.m. Date: Thursday Place: Zorn Arena Cost: $7 public; $5 62 and older; $3 UW System employees and students |
The event is co-sponsored by the American Ethnic Coordinating Office.
“(Richardson) is a producer, one that is in the process of learning about theater,” said Jesse Dixon, AECO student services coordinator. “She has a valuable perspective on the sequence of events relating to the civil rights movement.”
In addition to the “Eyes on the Prize” series, Richardson is also the producer of “Malcolm X: Make it Plain.”
Junior Persia Davis, a member of the Black and Latino Student Association, said Richardson has dedicated her life to the continuing struggle for civil rights in America.
As a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Richardson spent much of the 1960s campaigning for voting rights throughout the south.
Since then, Richardson has applied her experience and talents in the world of creative arts, making films that act as a teaching tool for those interested in the civil rights movement, as stated in a university press release.
In 1968 she had a number of former SNCC workers organize the Drum and Spear Bookstore in Washington, D.C., which became the largest African-American bookstore in the country.
On a campus like Eau Claire, where diversity isn’t overwhelming, different issues are trying to be addressed, Dixon said.
“The community (of Eau Claire) is not that diverse,” Dixon said. “(The Forum) is trying to address that issue by inviting people like Judy Richardson … to enlighten the public about issues.”
For the past four years, Richardson and a group of other SNCC women have been editing an anthology of SNCC women’s writings, “Hands on the Freedom Plow: The Untold Story of Women in SNCC,” as stated in a university press release.
The work is about the civil rights activism of more than 50 women in the southern freedom movement during the early 1960s.
“Eyes on the Prize,” which Richardson began working on in 1978, garnished six Emmy Awards along with an Academy Award nomination.
She co-produced “Malcolm X: Make it Plain,” which aired nationally on the PBS show “American Experience” and won both an Emmy and a Peabody Award.
