The public is invited to Marymount University’s annual Constitution Day Luncheon from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 16 in Gerard Phelan Dining Hall. The 50th anniversary of a landmark piece of federal legislation will be celebrated with the address “Demanding the Right to Vote: The Story behind the 1965 Voting Rights Act” by Dr. Spencer Crew of George Mason University.
The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Department of History and Politics’ American Heritage Initiative.
Dr. Crew, the Robinson Professor of U.S. History at GMU, served as president of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for six years and worked at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, for 20 years – nine of them as its director.
He has published extensively on African American and public history. He is past chair of the National Council for History Education and serves on the board of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Dr. Crew has been selected to The Organization of American Historians’ Distinguished Lectureship Program. He graduated from Brown University and holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from Rutgers University.
