July 5, 2015 Bob Adelman and Ira Glasser to Discuss Ongoing Struggle for Human Rights in America, Aug. 3
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Noted documentary photographer Bob Adelman and retired executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union Ira Glasser will present “Visions of Liberty,” a program that will reflect on the ongoing struggle for human rights in America.
The event will take place at 1 p.m. on Monday, Aug. 3, in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Avenue S.E., Washington, D.C. The discussion is made possible through a generous donation from Roberta I. Shaffer and is hosted by the Library’s Prints and Photographs Division, its Interpretive Programs Office and the Law Library of Congress. It is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed.
Robert R. Newlen, chief of staff for the Library of Congress, will moderate the discussion between Adelman and Glasser, which will touch on themes covered in their 1991 book, “Visions of Liberty: The Bill of Rights for All Americans.”
The program is presented in conjunction with the Library’s exhibition, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964, A Long Struggle for Freedom,” made possible by a generous grant from Newman’s Own Foundation and with additional support from HISTORY®. On display through Jan. 2, 2016, the exhibition commemorates the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, looks at events that shaped the civil rights movement, and explores the far-reaching impact of the act on a changing society. Adelman’s August 1963 photograph of current U.S. Congressman John Lewis—then leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)—rising to speak at the March on Washington is among more than 200 items featured in the exhibition.
Adelman is one of the foremost photographers of the civil rights movement. Born in New York City in 1930, Adelman grew up on Long Island and has degrees from Rutgers, Harvard, and Columbia. He studied photography with Alexey Brodovitch, the famed art director of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. With an avid interest in social and political events of the early 1960s, Adelman was drawn to the sit-ins staged by young students across the American South. He volunteered to take photos of the demonstrations for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and continued to be involved with civil rights issues and the human condition for the next four decades.
In 2014, Adelman was invited to serve at the Library of Congress as a consulting photographer to expand awareness of the Library’s visual collections and advise on potential new acquisitions.
Glasser served with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for 34 years, from 1967 until his retirement in 2001. He was associate director and then executive director of ACLU’s New York affiliate from 1967 to 1978, and executive director of the ACLU from 1978 until 2001.
During and after his tenure at ACLU, Glasser was a widely published essayist on civil liberties principles and issues. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Harper's, The New Republic, The Nation, and Christianity and Crisis, among many other publications. He was a frequent guest and debater on many radio and television shows, including William F. Buckley’s Firing Line. In addition to “Visions of Liberty: The Bill of Rights for All Americans,” Glasser was a co-author of “Doing Good: The Limits of Benevolence” (1978).
Born and raised in New York, Glasser received a bachelor’s in mathematics from Queens College and a master’s in mathematics from Ohio State University.
The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division holds more than 15 million photographs, drawings and prints from the 15th century to the present day. International in scope, these visual collections represent a uniquely rich array of human experience, knowledge, creativity and achievement, touching on almost every realm of endeavor: science, art, invention, government and political struggle, and the recording of history. For more information, visit www.loc.gov/rr/print/.
The Law Library of Congress was established in 1832 with the mission to make its resources available to members of Congress, the Supreme Court, other branches of the U.S. government and the global legal community and to sustain and preserve a universal collection of law for future generations. With more than 5 million items in various formats, the Law Library of Congress contains the world’s largest collection of law books and other resources from all countries and provides online databases and guides to legal information worldwide through its website at www.loc.gov/law/.
The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 160 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov.
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PR 15-116
2015-07-06
ISSN 0731-3527