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Rules, Rights, and Wrongs, April 7-11, 2008

Monday, April 7
1 p.m.  in Union 237A Mock Trial Exhibition

7 p.m. in Union 237A  Toward the Rule of Law: A Political Struggle between Judges and Prosecutors in the Russian Federation, a lecture by Tatyana Karaman

Tuesday, April 8
11 a.m.  in Union 237A  The Refugee Experience , a presentation by Abdul Bakar

Wednesday, April 9
Noon in Nahm Auditorium (WCM 299)  One Man's Quest for Justice, a presentation by Alvin Sykes

1 p.m. in Nahm Auditorium (WCM 299)  The Definitive Emmett Till: Passion and Battle of a Woman for Truth and Intellectual Justice, a lecture by Clenora Hudson-Weems
 
Thursday, April 10
11 a.m. in Wood 1  The Politics of Power and Identity in the European-Turkish Relations, a lecture by Ioannis Stivachtis

4 p.m. in Wood 1  Model United Nations Exhibition

Friday, April 11
1 p.m. in Union 236  Open Forum with Missouri State Representative David Pearce

Politics and Social Justice Week is organized by the Department of Political Science and the Political Science Students Association and co-sponsored by Africana Studies; American Democracy Project; the Center for Teaching and Learning; the College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Science; and the Office of Community Engagement

Toward the Rule of Law: A Political Struggle between Judges and Prosecutors in the Russian Federation-Tatyana Karaman

Dr. Tatyana Karaman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Director of Institutional Research at Samford University.  She holds Doctoral degree in political science from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Master's of Science in Criminal Justice from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and Law degree from Far-Eastern State University, Russia.  Dr. Karaman's areas of interest are research methods, comparative politics, and Russian politics. Dr. Karaman is recipient of many grants and awards including a National Science Foundation grant.  She published book chapters and articles dealing with such topics as Russian elections, political attitudes, and the Chechen war. Prior to coming to the United States, Dr. Karaman served as a Senior Procurator of the Primosky region of the Russian Federation.   Prior to being appointed a Procurator, Dr. Karaman served as a police detective. 

 

One Man's Quest For Justice-Alvin Sykes

Alvin Sykes holds none of the standard credentials to wield influence in the power corridors of this political city. He is a 51 year-old high school dropout with no steady job.

Yet senators listen to him. Prosecutors return his calls. As a self-made civil rights activist, Sykes persuaded the Justice Department to re-investigate the 1955 slaying of 14 year-old Emmett Till,, and he deserves a fair share of the credit for the department’s recent decision to review as many as 100 old murders in 14 states.

Sykes grew up poor and sickly in Kansas City, prone to schoolyard fights, Sykes dropped out of school in the ninth grade. Although he once dreamed of becoming a lawyer, he got most of his education from the public library. To support himself, Sykes found a job managing a local R&B band.
After campaigning to desegregate Kansas City schools, he helped persuade Missouri legislators to lower the age of jurors from 21 to 18, thus widening the pool of potential jurors.

Sykes’ major achievement involved the 1980 murder of a local jazz musician named Steve Harvey, who was beaten to death with a baseball bat. The man charged with the murder had been acquitted, but because of the efforts of Sykes and Harvey’s parents, the assailant, Raymond L. Bledsoe, was sentenced to life in prison under a federal civil rights law.

Focus on Till Case
The murder of young Emmett Till, who was killed in Mississippi after whistling at a white woman in a store, galvanized the civil rights movement.
Although Till’s killers were known--Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were acquitted a month after Till’s death and later confessed in an inteview with Look magazine--subsequent investigations centered on whether the men acted alone.

H.R. 923: Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 has been passed by the House of Representatives and is awaiting approval in the U.S. Senate.

The Definitive Emmett Till:  Passion and Battle of a Woman for Truth and Intellectual Justice-Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems

Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems was the first to establish the position of the August 28, 1955, brutal lynching of Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till, the 14-year-old Black Chicago youth for whistling at a 21-year-old white woman (Carolyn Bryant) in Money, MS, as the catalyst of the Modern Civil Rights Movement. In Emmett Till: The Sacrificial Lamb of the Civil Rights Movement (1994), she carefully documents the Till murder case as having set the stage for the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott, since it happened 3 months and 3 days before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery bus, December 1, 1955. A Ford Fellow, Hudson-Weems quests for truth surrounding the underplaying of the case in American history, concluding that Park’s demonstration was more palatable than Till’s bloated face, in spite of King’s assertion in Stride Toward Freedom that pressed in the minds of the Alabamians during the boycott was the image of Till. Contending that "Historians will talk about the good and the bad, but they won’t deal with the ugly," informant for her 1988 doctoral dissertation (U. of Iowa), Rayfield Mooty, Labor Union and Civil Rights activist who advised the mother, Mamie, during the ordeal, help to make the case a "cause célèbre."

Many luminaries in the academy praised the author for her bold, brave stance regarding this case. For example, Yale University’s late John Blassingame contended that the book is an unusually revealing and exciting narration of an important twentieth century event, crucial in the origins of the Civil Rights Movement. When you really think about it, Hudson-Weems is absolutely right. . . . . The lynching of Till may no longer be denied as the genesis of the chronology of the Civil Rights Movement.
On January 1, 1998, Hudson-Weems called Barry Morrow to advise him of an epiphany she had to take the movie, "Emmett: Passion for Truth," of which she is producer with Morrow, to another level. She wanted to tell the whole story, the story of redemption, without sacrificing the legacy of Emmett Till. From the horrid story of the senseless lynching of 14-year-old Emmett, we also learn of the story of the then 34-year old defense attorney, John Whitten, Jr., who delivered the defining closing remarks, "Every Last Anglo Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men" (the two murderers, 24-year old Roy Bryant and his 34-year of half brother, J. W. Milam), as the redemptive spirit. His subsequent activities as legal representative for members of the very community, Black, whom he then opposed, makes possible for a racial healing and a reconciliation for all to see without, of course, sacrificing the true legacy of Emmett Till.

The Politics of Power and Identity in the European-Turkish Relations-Ioannis Stivachtis

Yannis A. Stivachtis is Director of the International Studies Program at Virginia Tech. He is also Member of the Academic Committee and Head of the Politics & International Affairs Research Unit of the Athens Institute of Education and Research (ATINER); Scientific Expert, Research Directorate General - European Commission; Scientific Advisor, Department of International Cooperation and Development - International Olympic Committee (IOC); Member of the Executive Council, Comparative and Interdisciplinary Studies Section (CISS) - International Studies Association (ISA); and Secretary, the English School (ES) section - ISA.

His past service includes Academic Dean and Head of the International Relations Program, IFM University (Switzerland); Head of the Diplomacy and International Relations Program, Schiller International University (Switzerland); Research Fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) and Visiting Fellow at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He has also taught in various diplomatic and military academies. He currently serves as member of various editorial boards.

His areas of interest include security studies, theories of international organization and global governance, the question of order and justice in international society, and the definition and implementation of policies related to “good governance” and “political conditionality” by various regional and global organizations.

He is the author of Good Governance and Political Conditionality: The Standard of ‘Civilization' in Contemporary International Society (forthcoming); Co-operative Security and Non-Offensive Defense in the Zone of War (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2001); and The Enlargement of International Society (London: Macmillan, 1998) and co-author of Non-Offensive Defense in the Middle East (New York: United Nations Publications 1998). He is the editor of Global Affairs in a Turbulent World (Athens: ATINER, 2008); The State of European Integration (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); International Order in a Globalizing World (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007); International Governance & International Security (Athens: ATINER, 2005); Current Issues in European Integration (Athens: ATINER, 2004); and European Union's Mediterranean Enlargement (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2002); and co-editor of Turkey-European Union Relations: Dilemmas, Opportunities and Constraints (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008); The Economic Dimension of Turkey's Accession to the European Union (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, forthcoming); and EU-Turkish Economic Relations (Athens: ATINER, forthcoming). He has written several articles published in various journals and edited volumes. He currently works on a book entitled The Universalism-Regionalism Debate: The United Nations and Regional International Organizations and Groups.