The John Lewis-John Hume Symposium is a series of panel discussions organized by the African American Irish Diaspora Network that highlights the parallels of the civil rights and social justice movements in the United States and Ireland. The Symposium draws inspiration from those movements to guide current and future movements. Its goal: to achieve equality and social justice for all in America, Ireland, and globally.

In this third symposium in the series, the focus will be the literature of and language of the civil rights movements in the 1960s in the United States and Ireland, and how that literature and language provided the foundation of powerful movements for change in both countries.

The African American Irish Diaspora Network presents this third discussion in the Symposium in association with three entities at Notre Dame: the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies, The Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience, and the Klau Center for Civil and Human Rights. Additional co-sponsors are the Consulate General of Ireland in Chicago, the Institute of Study Abroad Ireland, and the John and Pat Hume Foundation. 

Introductory remarks will be provided by Dennis Brownlee, founder and president of the African American Irish Diaspora Network, and Kevin Byrne, Consul General of Ireland in Chicago. 

Speakers:

E. Ethelbert Miller, poet, teacher, and literary activist

Chanté Mouton Kinyon, Assistant Professor, English, University of Notre Dame, whose primary research explores transnational African American literature and culture;

Maurice Fitzpatrick,Filmmaker, whose documentary Burntollet, now in development, is an exploration of the parallels between the American and Irish civil rights movements;

Moderator: Mark Sanders, Professor of English and Africana Studies, Director, Notre Dame Initiative on Race and Resilience.