Two longtime civil rights and social justice activists headline a distinctive event this month at UW Tacoma. “Freedom Dreams: A Conversation on Movements for Social Change with Robin D.G. Kelley and Jack O’Dell,” is slated for Oct. 27 on the UW Tacoma campus.

Kelley is one of the top historians of the African American experience and author of Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009), Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002), and Race Rebels: Culture Politics and the Black Working Class (1994), among many other books.

O’Dell is one of the civil rights movement’s top practitioners and a longtime peace and social justice activist. He worked as a rank-and-file union organizer and with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference alongside Martin Luther King Jr. Later he worked closely with Jesse Jackson. He is the author of Climbin’ Jacob’s Ladder: The Black Freedom Movement Writings of Jack O’Dell (2010).

A reception for Kelley and O’Dell is planned for 4:15 p.m. in Philip Hall, on the UW Tacoma campus. The program begins at 5 p.m.

Sponsors include UW Tacoma’s Global Honors; Equity and Diversity Office; and the Ethnic, Gender and Labor Studies concentration of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences; University of Washington’s Simpson Center for the Humanities; College of Arts and Sciences; Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest; Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies; and Hilen Endowment for American Literature and Culture; as well as the Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas. The event is free and open to the public. For more information contact the Diversity Resource Center at (253) 692-4776 or shelljo@uw.edu .