Freedom Summer of ’64 Award ceremony is Sept. 20 at Hall Auditorium
Carol Anderson ’81 MA ’82 to be honored for efforts to advance civil rights and social justice
![Carol Anderson](../../_files/images/2024/09/24-freedom-summer-thumbnail-2.jpg)
Freedom Summer of ’64 Award ceremony is Sept. 20 at Hall Auditorium
Carol Anderson ’81 MA ’82 returns to Miami for both the ceremony and the Reimagining the Academy: Coalition-Building in a Divided World conference being held on campus Sept. 20-21.
The Freedom Summer of ’64 Award ceremony is from 9-10:30 a.m. and is open to Miami students, faculty, staff, and community members.
Author, educator, and historian, Anderson is currently the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of African American Studies at Emory University.
“This year we are so fortunate to recognize two Freedom Summer ‘64 awardees,” said Cristine Alcalde, vice president for Transformational and Inclusive Excellence. “The Western College Alumnae Association, which was honored this summer with a Freedom Summer of ’64 Award, represents a progressive institution where diversity, international perspectives, interdisciplinary endeavors, and social justice seamlessly converged.
“Western’s legacy continues to be substantial, as all of these important characteristics continue to guide many of our actions today. Both Western College’s legacy and Dr. Anderson’s award-winning scholarship and her advocacy embody the spirit of the Freedom Summer of ’64.”
The Western College Alumnae Association received its Freedom Summer of ’64 Award on June 7.
The Freedom Summer of ’64 Award is named for the site at Western College for Women, now Miami’s Western campus, where 800 young Americans trained to register Black voters in the South.
First given in 2018 to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, past recipients of the award include the Mt. Zion United Methodist Church, Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins WC ’74, Joe Madison, Wayne ’58 and Teresa Embry ’60, Reginald Hudlin, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, and Wil Haygood ’76.
“This award is so important because those students were fighting for democracy in 1964,” Anderson said in April when the award’s honorees were initially announced. “They were fighting for a democracy that was inclusive. They were fighting for a democracy that was closer to the vision of, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ To be in that lineage is an honor. That’s why the work on voter rights. That’s why the work on racial inequality. That’s why the work on human rights.”
The Sept. 20 award presentation also includes a fireside chat between Anderson and Kelly Banks ’81. Banks is a former award-winning writer and producer of television news who later served as vice president in charge of community relations and education outreach for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
“We are especially excited about the fireside chat between Carol Anderson and her longtime friend, nominator, and Miami alumna Kelly Banks ’81, which will focus on Dr. Anderson’s trajectory and work on voting rights, Black voter suppression, and civil rights, as well as touch on their time here at Miami as students,” Alcalde said.