Also a sociologist, Dr. Ladner’s career has been shaped by her involvement with the civil rights movement in Mississippi and as a staff member who organized the March on Washington in 1963. A native of Mississippi, she began her fight for social justice as a teenager when she helped organize a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) youth chapter in her hometown.
Ladner was a professor of sociology at Hunter College and the City University of New York Graduate Center, and Howard University after earning a B.A. from Tougaloo College and a Ph.D. from Washington University, St. Louis. She also served as provost and interim president of Howard University.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton appointed Ladner to the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, where her job was to oversee finances and budgetary restructuring of the public school system. She was named Washingtonian of the Year by Washingtonian Magazine for her work in education.
Her book, Tomorrow’s Tomorrow: The Black Woman, was the first book published in African American Women’s Studies and is now an American classic. Another of her books, The Death of White Sociology, was a landmark work challenging the value neutrality of mainstream sociology. She has published five additional books and numerous articles and is currently completing her memoir titled Standing in the Gap: A Memoir of Resistance, Rebirth and Redemption that captures the spirit of her 1960s generation of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) workers that challenged segregation and discrimination in the south, and changed the face of America.
Ladner also participated in a question-and-answer session at 2 p.m., Room 105 of the Joseph C. Shouvlin Center for Lifelong Learning, 737 N. Fountain Ave.
Established prior to the 1989-90 school year, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Convocation features an academic procession with faculty in full regalia and as all Wittenberg Series events, is free and open to the public. This event has been made possible through the generous support of an anonymous donor; Gil Belles, Wittenberg class of 1962; and media sponsor WYSO 91.3 FM Public Radio.
Now in its 33rd year, the Wittenberg Series brings distinguished lecturers and performing artists of national and international prominence to the Wittenberg campus and Springfield community. To make special arrangements, request a Series poster, or become a friend of the Wittenberg Series, contact Jeannine Fox at jfox@wittenberg.edu. All Wittenberg Series events are free and open to the public.
