MC Presents Howard University Law Professor Lisa Crooms

Montgomery College’s Frank Islam Athenaeum Symposia presents Lisa Crooms in Using Human Rights to Advance Our Common Humanity March 26 at 7 p.m. at Globe Hall, Germantown Campus. The spring 2014 Speaker Series includes timely, stimulating topics delivered by today’s leading experts in international affairs, the arts, politics and economics. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Lisa Crooms, Professor of Law at Howard University
Photo | Montgomery College

Director of the Constitutional Law Center, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Law at Howard University School of Law, Lisa Crooms will explore human rights, both national and international, and she will comment on The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Crooms is an expert on Constitutional, Gender, and International Human Rights Law. She is a Fulbright Scholar, having researched the relationship between gender, violence, and law in the construction of Jamaican post-independence national identity.

One of her most significant articles is entitled “The Future of the United States Commission on Civil Rights,” in which she argues for the expansion of the Commission to include Human Rights. Dean Crooms participated in a distinguished panel testifying before the Congressional Black Caucus on Race in America.

Schedule of remaining speakers:

Wednesday, April 2 – 7 p.m.
Sheila Kay Adams: Ballad Singing, Storytelling and Banjo Performance
Sheila Kay Adams, one of nine individuals to receive the 2013 National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, will demonstrate her signature drop-thumb style claw-hammer skills on the five-string banjo, her Appalachian storytelling, and ballad singing for an unforgettable evening of North Carolina folk traditions.

Monday, April 14 – 7 p.m.
NOOR – Screening of Drama: Written by Akbar Ahmed and Directed by Manjula Kumar, Followed by Distinguished Panel: Director, Actors, and Frank Islam

Noor is a two-act play about the abduction of a young woman named Noor and her three brothers who represent currents inside modern Muslim communities: a Sufi, a secular government bureaucrat, and an angry fundamentalist. Noor was written by Dr. Akbar Ahmed, chair of Islamic Studies at American University. Manjula Kumar, director of Noor, will lead a panel discussion of this significant drama.

Author of over a dozen award-winning books, he recently completed The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.

Following the screening of Noor, Manjula Kumar, director of Noor and Program Director at the Smithsonian Institution, will lead a panel discussion of this significant drama.

Wednesday, April 30 at 7 p.m.
Charles Williams, accompanied by Betty Bullock, formerly of the Washington Opera: Opera, The American Song Book, and Poetry of Langston Hughes

Renowned international singer, Charles Williams, will sing two selections from Porgy and Bess; he performed the role of Sportin’ Life at the Metropolitan Opera. In addition, he will sing some favorites from the American Song Book and recite the poetry of Langston Hughes.

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