Created Equal: America's Civil Rights Struggle

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UNLV’s Office of Diversity Initiatives and the Wiener-Rogers Law Library at the William S. Boyd School of Law will sponsor a series of film screenings, community discussions, and other activities that explore the civil rights movement in the United States. UNLV is one of nearly 500 institutions across the country that were chosen to participate in Created Equal: America’s Civil Rights Struggle, a grant-funded program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Created Equal centers on four films that bring the civil rights struggle to life. During the next three years, the NEH grant will support a variety of activities at UNLV and around the state, including discussions among students, scholars, and community members, film screenings, and displays and exhibits.

The first Created Equal event takes place on Tuesday, April 1, at UNLV’s Student Union. The program will feature excerpts from PBS’ Freedom Riders, a film that focuses on the Freedom Rides of 1961, when a group of volunteers traveled to the South to bring civil rights injustices to the attention of the nation. A group of scholars and community members will discuss with students and others the challenges facing civil rights workers in the 1960s. Panelists include Hannah Brown, local civic and community leader, Jean Childs, former director of Region IX Head Start, Joseph M. Neal, Jr., former Nevada State Senator, and David Tanenhaus, Chair of UNLV’s History Department and James E. Rogers Professor of History and Law.

Additional programming is planned throughout 2014 and 2015. During the Nevada legislative session in 2015, the Created Equal films (The Abolitionists, Slavery by Another Name, Freedom Riders, and The Loving Story) will be shown outside the State Senate Chambers in Carson City on four consecutive Fridays during the month of February 2015. In late spring 2015, Created Equal materials will be part of a multi-media installation in the State Legislative Building in Carson City.

For information about Created Equal programming, please contact Jose Melendrez, Assistant Vice President of UNLV’s Office of Diversity Initiatives (jose.melendrez@unlv.edu), or Jeanne Price, Director of the Wiener-Rogers Law Library, William S. Boyd School of Law, UNLV (jeanne.price@unlv.edu).