Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center Presents Author Ari Berman

The Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center in Oakland continues its popular Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series with author, journalist, political pundit and expert in voter registration and suppression Ari Berman Saturday, September 28, at 7 pm at the Marriott Hotel Grand Ballroom in downtown Oakland. Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley will join Berman for introduction and comments. The long-running lecture series presents civic leaders from across the country in lively and relevant presentations centered on Dr. King’s catalytic question: “Where do we go from here: chaos or community?” The Lecture Series is co-presented by the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District and the September 28 lecture is sponsored by Gilead Science, East Bay Community Foundation, East Bay Regional Park District and IBEW Local 595. The lecture is free of charge and RSVPs may be made by calling the Freedom Center at 510-434-3988. For more information, visit www.MLKFreedomCenter.org.

About Ari Berman

Ari Berman is a senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights, and a Reporting Fellow at Type Media Center. His stories have also appeared in The New York TimesRolling Stone, The AtlanticPolitico and The Guardian. He is a frequent guest and political commentator on MSNBC, NPR, PBS and C-Span. Berman’s work has earned him an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media and a place on the FD200 – 200 awardees whose work embodies Frederick Douglass’s enduring legacy of social change.

Berman is the author of Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction) and Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democractic Party and Reshape American Politics. Give Us The Ballot was named a best book of 2015 by the New York Times,Washington Post, NPR, the Boston Globe and Kirkus Reviews, and was nominated for the American Library Association’s Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence.

His frequent speaking topics include voting rights and racialized voter suppression; American politics; the state and future of democracy; civil rights; the intersection of money and politics; the 2020 census.

About the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series and the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center

The Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, co-produced by the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District, promotes an ample exchange of ideas to help inspire and move forward new leadership and servantship.

Broad East Bay audiences of all ages are exposed to some of our nation’s most courageous and exemplary civil and human rights figures, engaging in creative solutions and challenges to some of the most perplexing issues facing our communities today: economic inequity, voter disenfranchisement, systemic racism, violence in schools and neighborhoods, police brutality, and the contradictions and ramifications of extreme poverty.

Lectures are organized by the youth and staff at the Freedom Center, with a focus on promoting ideas and actions rooted in principles of nonviolence, and lessons from some of our nation’s most significant civil rights struggles.

Civic engagement at the Martin Luther King Jr Freedom Center brings together individuals and organizations of diverse ages, races and socioeconomic backgrounds, working side-by-side for a healthy democracy.

The Freedom Center brings best practices from the nation’s Civil Rights Movement to the forefront in community education, training, and practice, building strong community partnerships with proven results.