“A Tale of Many Stories: Youth Narratives of the Civil Rights Movement, Connecting Past to Present (and Future) through Literature” will be presented today at 4:45 p.m. in Averett University’s Mary B. Blount Library, 334 West Main Street. This event is open to the public and to media.

Dr. Antoinette Gazda, associate professor in Averett’s Department of Language, Literature & Culture, and coordinator of African & African American Studies, recently completed her dissertation, which  provides an alternative view of the Civil Rights Movement, one that is less focused on adult contributions and more inclusive of stories about the era’s youth participants and protesters, and thereby, disrupts the dominant civil rights narrative embedded in American collective memory.

In her work, Gazda argues that literature—be it fiction, poetry, film or life writing—offers readers intellectual opportunities that historical retellings cannot.