The Best Tribute to Desmond Tutu Would Be Freedom for All

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In a series of reflections on his decades of personal and political connections with Archbishop Tutu, inter-faith activist and human rights academic Matt Meyer will tell stories about his times with the Arch, share political campaigns of importance to his legacy, and suggest ways in which his particular praxis - of radical nonviolence based on justice and liberation - is especially relevant for the 21st Century. There will be time for prayers, questions, and dialogue, and as would be a requirement of the Archbishop: there will also be some jokes!

Speaker: 

Matt Meyer is an internationally noted historian, orator, and organizer who serves as Secretary-General of the International Peace Research Association, the world’s leading consortium of university-based professors, scholars, students, and community leaders. Meyer is the Senior Research Scholar of the University of Massachusetts/Amherst’s Resistance Studies Initiative, active also with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and the War Resisters’ International. The author/editor of over a dozen books, Meyer’s work focuses on African Peace and Nonviolence Studies; 21^st Century Decolonization; the Strategies and Tactics of Movement-building; and Political Prisoners of Conscience and the Abolition of White Supremacy. South African Nobel Peace Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in his Introduction to Meyer’s first book Guns and Gandhi in Africa (co-authored with Pan-African pacifist Bill Sutherland), noted that they “have looked beyond the short-term strategies and tactics which too often divide progressive peoples…and begun to develop a language which looks at the roots of our humanness.” Argentine Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel, in his Introduction to Meyer’s encyclopedic look at issues of US imprisonment Let Freedom Ring, added that his “consistent work as a coalition-builder…provides tools for today’s activists.”

Start your morning with us! 

Schedule:
7:30 - 7:35  Log in and socialize
7:35 - 7:45  Welcome and introductions 
7:45 - 7:50  Reflection (5 min. maximum)
7:50 - 9:15  Program and Q&A
9:15 - 9:20  Announcements
9:20 - 9:30  Closing circle and prayer

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