OCCC to feature ‘Martin, Malcolm, and the American Conscience'

Middletown — Vincent F. A. Golphin will deliver the lecture “Martin, Malcolm, and the American Conscience” at 7:15 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 2, in Harriman Hall 111 Film Theatre. The lecture will highlight the key moral arguments in the books, speeches, and writings of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. The presentation will show how life and learning influenced their views, and assess how each man’s work affected the nation’s moral conscience. According to Golphin, the rise of fear and rage in the United States and throughout the world, the spread of poverty and disease around the globe, and rumors of wars to come, have left most Americans keen to find a way to a better future; the key is the need for a renewed social conscience. Golphin has been an observer of social and political developments throughout the United States and the world. For more than 25 years, his articles, poems, essays, and stories have appeared in a wide range of publications, including magazines such as Christianity Today, National Catholic Reporter, Emerge, Washington Living, and Upstate New Yorker; literary journals such as Bridges, Drylongso, Fyah, Ishmael Reed’s Konch Magazine, Mental Satin, and the Southern Poetry Review; and the Newhouse and New York Times American news services. Currently, he continues those activities as managing editor of About Time, a national news and feature magazine headquartered in Rochester. His books include “Life and Other Things I Know: Poems; Essays and Short Stories,” “Take Two, They’re Small,” “African-American Children’s Anthology,” and “Like A Dry Land.” Golphin is a professor of creative writing, literature, and cultural studies at Rochester Institute of Technology. A snowdate is set for Thursday, Feb. 16. This Lyceum event, the fourth in a series celebrating black history and heritage, is free. The universally accessible Harriman Hall is located in Orange County Community College at the corner of Wawayanda and East Conkling Avenues in Middletown. For more information, call 341-4891 or write to cultural@sunyorange.edu.