Montgomery Fellow and prominent commentator on issues of race and ethnicity Manning Marable will lead the first of the Student Assembly's series of Conversations tonight at 6 p.m. in Rockefeller Hall.
Manning will lead a discussion about stereotypes following the Assembly's showing of Spike Lee's film "Do the Right Thing."
Karen Wilkes '00, summer chair of the Assembly's Student Life Committee, said the Assembly expects Marable's presence to draw a large crowd to the first Conversation.
Wilkes said discussion of issues at Dartmouth usually does not take place until incidents have occurred. She said the Assembly created Conversations in order to "start dialogue that doesn't necessarily come from conflict."
Wilkes said the Assembly plans to have at least one more Conversation during this Summer term, and the series will begin again during either the Fall or Winter term.
The Assembly wants at least two different campus organizations to sponsor each future Conversation, Wilkes said.
"We want to encourage student interaction, not just the dialogue of the Conversations," Wilkes said.
While at Dartmouth, Marable is teaching a history class and working on his latest book, entitled "What Black America Thinks."
Marable is a professor of history and political science at Columbia University.
