DATE: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004

EVENT: Ernest Green, one of nine African-American students escorted by federal troops into Little Rock’s all-white Central High School in 1957, was the first of that group to graduate and went on to earn two degrees from Michigan State University. He will be the featured speaker in a discussion titled, ” School Desegregation in the 20th Century: The Long Shadow of Little Rock.”

Green’s famous moment in civil rights and U.S. history has made its way into most history books and inspired a 1993 film, “The Ernest Green Story.” Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus had called in National Guard troops to openly defy a court order and keep the students from desegregating the school while President Dwight Eisenhower became the first president since Reconstruction to send troops into the South.

Green would go on to have a successful career that has included a job as an assistant labor secretary in the Carter Administration and his current role as a top executive with Lehman Brothers. Green’s appearance is part of U-M’s semester-long series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. The famous landmark desegregation case, whose legacy has impacted numerous access-to-public education cases including U-M’s own 2003 affirmative action ruling, is being celebrated throughout winter term through a series of events and a Brown theme semester.

Green will be joined by U-M’s senior vice provost, Lester Monts, who grew up in Little Rock and attended school a few years behind Green. The panel also includes Waldo Martin Jr., a University of California-Berkeley history professor and author of “Brown v. Board of Education: A Brief History with Documents” and “The Mind of Frederick Douglass. ” Two U-M doctoral students students will engage Green, Monts and Martin in a conversation on the significance of the 1957 events for the current generation of students and leaders.

PLACE : Rackham Auditorium , 915 East Washington St. Central campus map: http://www.umich.edu/news/ccamp.html

WEB LINKS: For more information on Brown-related events, visit: http://www.umich.edu/brown50