Radio/TV host Tavis Smiley and author, educator and historian, Dr. Cornel West will kick off the Kerner Plus 40 Symposium, Sunday, 2 p.m. at Harrison Auditorium (doors open at 1 p.m.). This event is free and open to the public. Seats are limited.

Smiley and West will address "The State of Black America: 40 years after the Kerner Commission Report."

Co-sponsored by The Institute for Advanced Journalism Studies at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and The University of Pennsylvania, the symposium opening session begins Monday, February 25 through Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2008, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m.at N.C. A&T's Memorial Student Union Stallings Ballroom and then continues The University of Pennsylvania, February 28-29.

Smiley is the host the late night television talk show, Tavis Smiley on PBS, and his radio show The Tavis Smiley Show on public radio is distributed by PRI, Public Radio International. He is the first American ever to simultaneously host signature talk shows on both public television and public radio. He is the principle organizer of the State of the Black Union address, an annual Black History Month event, that gathers influential thinkers and politicians from around the country.

West is currently a professor of religion at Princeton University and the author of numerous books including Race Matters and The African American Century. He is a former Alphonse Fletcher, Jr. University Professor at Harvard University where he taught Afro-American Studies and Philosophy of Religion. West received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University and his master's and a Ph.D from Princeton University. He taught at Yale, Union Theological Seminary and Princeton University where he was Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies.

This year's conference is titled, "Kerner Plus 40: Another Look at America's Most Intractable Problem." The institute will take an in-depth look at the Kerner Commission Report, a 1968 document of a federal government commission that investigated urban riots in the United States. The Kerner Report was released after seven months of investigation by the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders and took its name from the commission chairman, Illinois Governor Otto Kerner. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed the commission on July 28, 1967, while rioting was still underway in major cities. Johnson charged the commission with analyzing the specific triggers for the riots, the deeper causes of the worsening racial climate of the time, and potential remedies.

The commission concluded that urban violence reflected the profound frustration of inner-city blacks and that racism was deeply embedded in American society. The report's most famous passage warned that the United States was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal." The report further recommended sweeping federal initiatives directed at improving educational and employment opportunities, public services, and housing in black urban neighborhoods, which were largely ignored by the Richard Nixon Administration.

After 40 years, the IFAJS sent journalists back to some of the cities that were mentioned in the Kerner report to take a look at the current civil rights issues still affecting the minority communities. The result will be a book of findings to be released at the conference.

The two-day workshops will include local and national panelists including Pulitzer prize winner Les Payne, Newsday, Henry E. Frye, retired N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice, Dr. Julius Chambers, attorney, Bennett College President Julianne Malveaux and Rev. Nelson Johnson, of Faith Community Center.

Workshop topics will be "Black and White Together: A Shared Struggle or a Struggle to Share", "The Kerner Report's Impact on the Black Power Movement" and "Protest Music, Rap and the Civil Rights Struggle," among others. N.C. A&T faculty that will participate as moderators and panelists include Dr. Teresa J. Styles, professor of Journalism and Mass Communications, Dr. Claude Barnes, associate professor, Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, Dr. James Steele, associate professor, Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, Dr. Robert Davis, chair, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Gail Wiggins, assistant professor, Journalism and Mass Communications and the history department's Dr. Millicent Brown.

Actor and director, Tim Reid will also host a workshop on Tuesday, February 26, 7 p.m., on Race Relations in Hollywood.

The University of Pennsylvania's keynote speaker is former president Bill Clinton, Thursday, Feb. 28. A link to Clinton's address will be available after 2 p.m. by visiting: http://beansidhe.isc-net.upenn.edu:8080/ramgen/cas/kerner/opening.rm. For additional information go to: http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/article.php?id=1320.

The 2008 HBCU Think Tank, hosted by the Student Government Association at N.C. A&T, is working in collaboration with the IFAJS. For more information contact Samantha Hargrove at 336.256.0863.