Lecture to focus on 'revolutionary example' of activist Paul Robeson

Today’s activists could learn from the legacy of international activist and actor-singer Paul Robeson, according to an April 6 lecturer at the University of Louisville.

Educator Tony Monteiro will discuss “The Revolutionary Example of Paul Robeson: Tools for Today’s Activists” at 7 p.m. in Ekstrom Library’s Chao Auditorium. The talk and reception afterward are free and public.

The event is sponsored by the College of Arts and Sciences’ international, diversity and engagement programs office, Pan-African studies department and Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research.

Monteiro, former co-director of Temple University’s Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought, helps teach a social justice course at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been an activist for civil rights, black power, African liberation and world peace and against the death penalty.

Monteiro will talk about how the social justice issues Robeson championed are resurfacing in activism about police treatment and mass incarceration. Robeson, who died in 1976, was an athlete who went on to become a lawyer and well-known singer and actor on stage and in films such as “Show Boat” and “The Emperor Jones.” He became a world activist against racial injustice and was blacklisted during the McCarthyism period in the 1950s.