The Reverend C.T. Vivian, a Baptist minister who worked closely with Martin Luther King, Jr. during the civil rights movement, will give the keynote address on Saturday at the fourth annual Emerging Black Leaders Symposium.
Vivian participated in the famous Freedom Rides in the early 1960s and started the federally funded program Upward Bound to help low-income students attain college educations.
"He really has a forward-thinking mind about how we train the next generation of leaders," said junior Jen Bailey, president of the undergraduate group Emerging Black Leaders.
Vivian said his speech will focus on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and what his leadership specifically means to blacks in America. Vivian believes that running for president forces any minority candidate to represent the country as a whole rather than just minority rights.
"You haven't heard him have a black agenda as such," Vivian told the Daily. "Not that that's not important, but he is running for president of the total country. He sees that, and he understands that, so that becomes tremendously important in terms of the new leadership that is necessary of our time."
Vivian will also touch on Obama's Democratic caucus win in Iowa on Jan. 3.
"When we see Iowa, a state that I've done a lot of work in for [about 20] years, vote overwhelming for Obama - a black man - that says we need not accept old definitions and understandings about new leadership," he said.
The symposium will also feature two discussion panels.
The first, entitled "Accomplished Sistas: Black Women in Under-Represented Fields," will feature Janet Langhart, a former Entertainment Tonight and BET commentator and current president of Langhart Communications, and Denise Johnson, a physical oncologist at the Stanford University Medical Center, among others.
Bailey explained what she wants to hear from the panelists. "In their specific fields, what challenges do they face both as a woman and an African-American?" she said.
The second panel discussion is entitled "Do You Have to Be Black to Be a Leader in the Black Community? Alliance Building Versus Community Self-Empowerment." It will feature a variety of educators.
Speakers will include Sabina Vaught, assistant professor of urban education at Tufts, and Michael Benitez, Jr., director of intercultural development at Lafayette College. Many of the panelists are not black but have attempted to combat specific issues facing blacks.
Bailey said that the discussion will focus on the social welfare problems facing low-income urban populations of all different races. "How do we address these important political and social issues and make people understand that it's not just a black issue?" she said.
The symposium has become more popular each year, according to Bailey.
"With each going year, we've gotten more and more Tufts students invested in it and more people involved," she said.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick and former U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. (D-Tenn.) visited in 2006.
The symposium will start with registration at 10 a.m. on Saturday in Cabot Auditorium. Tickets cost $5.
he first panel is at 11 a.m., Vivian speaks at 1 p.m., and the second panel starts at 3:30 p.m.
