Recently in Abigail S. Greene

The victories of the civil rights movement were extraordinary, but this work is far from done according to civil rights activist, politician, and writer Julian Bond.

 

Bond, who helped to found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, served in the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate, and chaired the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), traced the history of the fight for racial equality at a Woodrow Wilson School lecture Nov. 20.

 

“It saw wrong and acted against it. It saw evil and brought it down,” said Bond of the civil rights movement. “But the task ahead is enormous, equal to if not greater than the job already done.”

 

Bond spoke of the evolution and organization of the SNCC, which encouraged the development of independent political parties, added foreign policy and economic concerns to the Black agenda, used grassroots organizational tactics to mobilize the rural South, and addressed the psychological barriers to Black political and social engagement.

 

Bond noted that these efforts continue in varying forms, and he cited the long lines of voters in Florida two weeks ago as evidence of their legacy: “ordinary men and women proving they could accomplish extraordinary tasks in the pursuit of freedom.”

Political secrets that could lead to illegal or catastrophic actions must be revealed, no matter the personal cost, Daniel Ellsberg told a capacity audience in Dodds Auditorium March 8.

 

Ellsberg, who in 1971 released the top-secret Pentagon Papers detailing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, was interviewed by Bart Gellman ’82, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a visiting lecturer at the Woodrow Wilson School. Together, they discussed the implications of leaking political secrets and the parallels between the Pentagon Papers and WikiLeaks.

 

“I identify very much with Bradley Manning,” said Ellsberg of the Army intelligence analyst who faces a court-martial on charges of obtaining secret war logs and State Department cables about Afghanistan and Iraq that subsequently were released by WikiLeaks. “Despite the stress of his position, he did the right thing.”

 

Ellsberg emphasized the importance of public employees leaking such information, highlighting situations in which it is necessary, such as government misrepresentations of the truth.

 

“[If] the effect of the lies is to get us into not just a war but a disastrous, unjust war,” he said, “that’s when they should consider giving up their job, clearance, career, and perhaps their marriage and their children’s education.”

When Rachael Alexandroff ’12 found out that her Sunday flight back to Princeton was cancelled in anticipation of Hurricane Irene, she tried to rebook it – six times. Alexandroff, a volunteer leader of Princeton’s international student pre-orientation program, finally gave up, boarding a bus that got her into Princeton on Tuesday night, just in time to help check in incoming freshmen.

 

With half of the pre-orientation volunteers held up due to hurricane-related travel disruptions, Alexandroff said that “everyone has had to step up and work a bit harder and longer.”

 

In the wake of the hurricane, the University was closed on Aug. 28 and 29 to all but essential staff, and implemented a delayed opening on Aug. 30 due to power outages and road closures. Hurricane updates were posted periodically on the University homepage.

 

At least eight trees fell along campus roadways, according to University spokesman Martin A. Mbugua, but all windows and roofs remained intact. The worst flooding hit the Boathouse, which took on four feet of water as Lake Carnegie spilled over its banks. The University facilities staff was on call throughout the storm.