Contact:

Leo J. Goodsell, Executive Director

Berrien County Historical Association

P.O. Box 261

Berrien Springs, MI 49103

Tele: (269) 471-1202

Berrien County and the Civil Rights Movement

BERRIEN SPRINGS, MICHIGAN: The Berrien County Historical Association is hosting a program “Berrien County and the Civil Rights Movement” by Georgia Boggs, Niles Chapter NAACP and Clarence Hodges at the Orchards Mall Community Room, Benton Township at 7:00 p.m., September 19, 2002. Following the program, guests will be invited to tour the exhibit. This program is part of the activities connected with the Smithsonian Institution's exhibit We Shall Overcome: Photographs from the American Civil Rights Era currently running through September 29 at Orchards Mall in Benton Township. The exhibit and associated programs are free and open to the general public.

The exhibit's eighty dynamic photographs highlight key elements and personalities of the Civil Rights Era in American history from 1954 to 1968. We Shall Overcome offers viewers an opportunity to consider our nation's current struggles and divisions through the window of this critical phase in our not-so-distant past.

The exhibit and associated programs are made possible in part by a grant from United Way of Southwest Michigan and the Frederick S. Upton Foundation. This activity is also supported by a grant from the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo and is a program of the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs.