This interactive dialogue, led by Leitner Center Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence Gay McDougall, brings together scholars, researchers and activists from diverse social movements to consider how the fight against apartheid can inform current social movements.

The profound transformations that were the goals of the movement against apartheid are still works in progress.  However, the successes to date of those struggles and equally their notable failures have generated lively debates among the architects of later social movements.

What are the linkages between the development of norms and the movement’s success “on the ground?” What organizational and advocacy tactics and strategies were crucial elements in the overall struggle? Does modern technology trump or simply build on organizing lessons from the past?

This event celebrates the acquisition of the Gay McDougall South Africa and Namibia Papers by Columbia Libraries’ Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research.

Moderator:
Gay McDougall, former Director, Southern Africa Project, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Former UN Independent Expert on Minorities, and Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, Leitner Center for International Law and Justice

Panelists:
Cecelie Counts, former organizer, TransAfrica 

Jennifer Davis, former CEO, American Committee on Africa 

Ejim Dike, Executive Director, US Human Rights Network 

Michael Wahid Hanna, Senior Fellow, The Century Foundation 

Jessica Stern, Executive Director, International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission

Sponsors:
Center for Human Rights Documentation & Research, CUL/IS
The Human Rights Institute of the Columbia Law School
The Institute for the Study of Human Rights
The Institute for African Studies
The Leitner Center for International Law and Justice at Fordham University School of Law

Free and open to the public.

RSVP to chrdr@columbia.edu

More information:  http://library.columbia.edu/locations/chrdr/news_events/defyinginjustice.html  

Brown Bag Lunch Series