Galloway, N.J. – W. Paul Coates, founder and director of the Black Classic Press (BCP), will be the keynote speaker at the 16^th annual Fannie Lou Hamer Human and Civil Rights Symposium at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 8 in the Stockton University Performing Arts Center. The theme of this year’s symposium will be “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

The event is free and open to the public and will also be livestreamed in the Fannie Lou Hamer Event Room at the Stockton Atlantic City Academic Center. 

The symposium will also feature performances by the Afro One Dance Group and Gospel Choir led by Professor of Music Beverly Vaughn will perform. Coates will also participate in a panel discussion with Stockton Distinguishes Professor of Social Work Patricia Reid-Merritt and Atlantic City Councilman Moe Delgado.  Stockton president Harvey Kesselman and United Black Students Society president Jayden Cohen-Boyce will also speak.

Coates founded the BCP in 1995 to produce books and documents using digital print technology. BCP specializes in republishing obscure and significant works by and about people of African descent.

Coates has also formerly served as an African American Studies reference and acquisition librarian at Howard University’s Moorland-Springarn Research Center. Coates was also once a member and Maryland state coordinator of the Black Panther Party, and was instrumental in the establishment of the Black Panther Party Archives at Howard University.

Fannie Lou Hamer was an advocate for African Americans' voting rights during the Civil Rights movement, and made history in 1964 by giving testimony at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City in opposition to the seating of an all-white Mississippi delegation.

                                                                                       #           #         #

Contact:
Diane D’Amico
Director of News and Media Relations
Stockton University
Galloway, N.J. 08205
Diane.DAmico@stockton.edu
609-652-4593
609-412-8069
stockton.edu/media