Georgette Norman, the former director of the Rosa Parks Museum, will be at Carlow University on March 30 to give a lecture.
| Marketing and Communications | For Immediate Release |
| Drew Wilson, Director, Media Relations | March 16, 2016 |
| 412.578.2095 (phone) | |
| 412.260.6807 (cell) | |
| 412.578.2080 (fax) | |
| agwilson@carlow.edu |
Georgette Norman’s Lecture Titled, “A Place Called Home: Displacement & Replacement of African American Communities;” Panel Discussion Follows
Pittsburgh, Pa. – Georgette Norman, the former director of the Rosa Parks Museum in Montgomery, Ala., will be at Carlow University on Wednesday, March 30, for a lecture titled, “A Place Called Home: Displacement and Replacement of African-American Communities.”
The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will take place at 6 p.m., in the Kresge Center, located on the fifth floor of University Commons, in the center of Carlow’s campus. Refreshments will be served prior to the lecture.
“Ms. Norman will present her scholarship about the concept of ‘home’ for African Americans – from the slave ship to plantations, to sharecropping, to Jim Crow, to the Great Migration, to public housing,” said Sylvia Rhor, PhD, associate professor of art history and co-director of the Carlow Art Gallery. “This event provides an important opportunity for community conversation about affordable housing in our city.”
Norman will be speaking in conjunction with the photographic exhibition currently on view in Carlow’s Art Gallery, “Displacement/Replacement,” which features the work of African-American photographers Charles “Teenie” Harris, Chris Ivey, Curtis Reaves, and Tom Jefferson, who turned their cameras’ lenses on the neighborhoods of the Hill District, East Liberty, Braddock, and of Butler County, respectively. These communities were marked by “urban renewal,” gentrification, and environmental blight, and have seen the displacement of thousands of low-income residents, primarily African-American and/or working class people.
Following Norman’s address, a panel discussion with Ivey, Reaves, and Jefferson will take place, moderated by the exhibit’s guest curator, Jen Saffron, MFA, the director of communications for the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council. After the lecture and panel discussion, the Art Gallery will be open for anyone who wants to view the exhibit.
“We’re excited to bring together these photographs and video to help raise community questions,” said Saffron. “We are looking forward to the Carlow University Art Gallery serving as a place for serious dialogue about topics that truly must be discussed and resolved if we are going to actually be “the Most Livable City” – racism, gentrification, and our environment.”
The event is sponsored by Carlow’s Grace Ann Geibel Institute for Justice and Social Responsibility.
“Displacement/Replacement” runs through May 6, 2016. For public tours or more information, please contact Sylvia Rhor, PhD, at scrhor@carlow.edu or by phone at (412) 578-6208.
###
About Carlow University
Located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carlow University was founded by the Sisters of Mercy in 1929. Offering both undergraduate and graduate programs, Carlow University is a comprehensive master’s institution dedicated to learner-centered education at the collegiate levels and at the elementary school level in the Campus School of Carlow University.