November 18, 2014: University of South Alabama, Mobile AL

6:00 p.m. presentation with Lewis V Baldwin with Reception and Book signing to follow. Free and open to all.
USA Health Sciences Building Auditorium (located at corner of USA Drive North and University Blvd)

Civil rights veteran Maria Gitin and Martin Luther King Jr scholar Lewis V Baldwin will share memories of their individual early encounters with Martin Luther King Jr and the philosophy of nonviolence. Gitin and Baldwin will discuss how these experiences influenced their lives including Gitin’s commitment to political action and Baldwin’s’ pursuit of scholarship. Each has unique perspective on the spiritual and social impact of King’s nonviolent activist theology. Gitin served as a summer civil rights volunteer in Camden, in Wilcox County AL, where Lewis Baldwin was born and raised. They met when Maria Gitin returned four decades later to recapture the stories and experiences of her co-workers and their families.

 In 1965 Gitin was a 19-year old college freshman at San Francisco State College who joined the civil rights movement in the South, and Lewis Baldwin was a 16-year old student at segregated Camden Academy in Camden, Alabama. Their lively talk is both entertaining and historic as the impact of Martin Luther King Jr is viewed through their individual lenses of race, gender, faith and geographic origin. The presentation will include historic photo slides. Each may read relevant excerpts from their new books, Baldwin’s “In a Single Garment of Destiny” and Gitin’s’ “This Bright Light of Ours.”