American writer and historian Timothy Tyson, author of the nationally acclaimed book Blood Done Sign My Name, recently adapted into a feature film, will be the featured speaker at Elon Law's third annual Diversity Day on Saturday, February 27, beginning at 9 a.m.
Elon Law’s Diversity Day is a free event designed primarily for minority students, but open to all who are considering law school. It will take place at Elon Law School, located at 201 North Greene Street in downtown Greensboro.
Tyson’s book, Blood Done Sign My Name, has been adapted into a feature film, scheduled for release in February, 2010. Click here or on the E-Cast link to the right of this article to view the film trailer.
The book, published by Crown in 2004, is a memoir and history of the murder of a black man, Henry Marrow, in Oxford, North Carolina in 1970. It also documents the African American uprising that followed. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the North Caroliniana Society Book Award in 2005 and the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion in 2007.
Elon Law’s Diversity Day program will include panel presentations from practicing attorneys, judges and current law school students, as well as a mock class. The event will offer prospective students the opportunity to visit with law students, faculty, and practicing attorneys as they consider careers in the law.
Timothy Tyson currently serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, with secondary appointments in the Duke Divinity School and the Department of History. At the Divinity School, he teaches “Christianity and Civil Rights” and “The Christ-Haunted South: Race and Christianity in the Twentieth Century American South.” He also has a position in the Department of American Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Tyson’s Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power won the James A. Rawley Prize and the Frederick Jackson Turner Award of the Organization of American Historians. Democracy Betrayed: the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and its Legacy, which he co-edited with David Cecelski, won the Outstanding Book Award in 1999 from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights in North America.
Tyson attended the University of North Carolina at Greensboro before he earned his B.A. at Emory University in 1987 and his PhD at Duke University in 1994.
Those interested in attending Diversity Day at Elon Law should RSVP to lawreservations@elon.edu with the names of all persons planning on attending from your party. For questions or additional information, please contact Sharon Gaskin, assistant dean for admissions, at sgaskin@elon.edu or 336.279.9200.
Click here for a report on Diversity Day 2009, featuring civil rights leader Elaine R. Jones
