| The departments of political science and criminal justice and history at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will host a program to honor the contributions of African Americans during the Vietnam War and to commemorate the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement.
The program is scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 11, 7– 9 p.m., in the Dudley Building, multi-purpose room. It is free and open to the public.
The discussion will take a look at the long overdue efforts to recognize African American veterans who have been neglected and overlooked, according to organizers. This event will provide an opportunity for African American Vietnam veterans to tell their stories. It too will enlighten the public on the two “victories” African Americans have continually sought since the American War for Independence. The war in Vietnam and the domestic movement for civil and human rights were contemporaneous events. Many veterans supported the “Civil Rights Movement.”
“There were also many African Americans who didn’t fight in Vietnam and who were active in civil rights at home. It is important to understand that their advocacy against the Vietnam War was not against Black veterans,” said Dr. James Mayes, interim chair of the political science and criminal justice department. “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. eloquently explained the relationship between anti-war advocacy and civil rights in his 1967 speech at Riverside Methodist Church in New York.”
On this November 11, the program is set to commemorate the efforts and memories if every generation of African American soldiers and civilian activists that supported the “Double V”.
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