TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The University of Alabama department of American studies is hosting the first Rose Gladney Lecture on Justice and Social Change, Thursday, March 18, at 7:30 p.m. in room 110 of the Alabama Institute for Manufacturing Excellence (AIME) Building on campus.

Poet, author and activist, Minnie Bruce Pratt, will be the guest speaker. She will discuss, “When I say ‘Steal’ who do you think of?” The lecture is free and open to the public. Child care is available with advanced arrangement.

The annual lecture is named for Dr. Rose Gladney, who recently retired as UA associate professor of American studies. Gladney spent her career working on issues of social justice and change. She was one of the early professors in the UA’s women’s studies department and helped craft the master’s program in that field. She also helped develop and sustain the African-American studies minor.

“This great experiment in democratic governance which we call America draws strength from multiple human struggles to create not only a more physically comfortable life, but also a just and equitable society. I am fortunate to have grown into adulthood in the midst of the 20th century's greatest examples of such struggle: the African-American liberation movement, the women's liberation movement, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender liberation movements -- all symbols and symptoms of the larger human struggle for justice and social change.

“For 35 years, my teaching and research reflected my study of as well as my participation in these movements. In establishing this lectureship on justice and social change, my colleagues, students, family, and friends demonstrate their own commitment to the work that gives our lives purpose, meaning, and great hope. I can think of nothing more honorable to be done in my name. I am truly humbled and deeply grateful,” Gladney commented.

A Selma native, Pratt holds a bachelor’s degree from UA and a doctorate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has published five books of poetry, “The Sound of One Fork,” “We Say We Love Each Other,” “Crime Against Nature,” “Walking Back Up Depot Street” and “The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems,” recently issued by Pitt Poetry Series.

In 1989, “Crime Against Nature” was chosen as the Lamont Poetry Selection by the Academy of American Poets, an annual award given for the best full-length book of poetry by a U.S. author. In 1991, “Crime Against Nature” was given the American Library Association Gay and Lesbian Book Award for Literature. That year Pratt was chosen to receive a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award given by the Fund for Free Expression to writers “who have been victimized by political persecution.”

In 1992, her book of autobiographical and political essays, “Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991,” was a finalist in non-fiction for the Lambda Literary Awards. Pratt also received a Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her book of prose stories about gender boundary crossing, “S/HE,” was one of the five finalists in non-fiction for the 1995 American Library Association Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Book Award, as well as one of the three finalists for the Firecracker Award in non-fiction.

Recently, Pratt served as the Jane Watson Irwin Chair in Women’s Studies at Hamilton College. She is also a member of the graduate faculty of the Union Institute and University, a non-residential, alternative, doctorate-granting university. Her areas of concentration there are women's studies, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender studies and creative writing.

Following the lecture, there will be a book signing and reception honoring Gladney in the AIME Building lobby. Both Gladney and Pratt will be available to sign books.

For more information or to arrange child care for this event, contact Dr. Lynne Adrian at 205/348-9762 or ladrian@tenhoor.as.ua.edu.