Lecture is on Thursday, April 17 at 5:30 p.m. in George Pearl Hall
Brenda E. Stevenson, UCLA department of history, presents the 2014 C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lecture, "Rethinking the L.A. Riots of 1992: Contested Images of the 'Female' in the Murder Trial of Soon Ja Du," on Thursday, April 17 at 5:30 p.m. at George Pearl Hall in the Garcia Auditorium. Pearl Hall is located on Central and Cornell on the UNM campus. The event is free and open to the public. A book signing and reception follow the lecture.
Stevenson received her Ph.D. in history from Yale University. She has taught at Wesleyan University, University of Texas at Austin and has been on faculty at UCLA since 1990. Her areas of expertise include African American history centered on slave women and family during the colonial and antebellum eras. She has written and lectured widely on the Southern white family (planters and yeomen), the free black family in the Southern and Northern United States, and the contemporary African American family, particularly in the urban setting.
Her books include Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South (1996) and The Journals of Charlotte Forten Grimke (1988). Her latest work, The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender and the Origins of the LA Riots (2013) examines the murder case of 15-year-old Harlins. It is a case where the victim, defendant and judge were all female. Stevenson sets out to discover where the "common ground" of gender, race, class and ethnicity exist in Los Angeles.
The C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Endowment Fund supports the C. Ruth and Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture, a distinguished lecture series now in its 29th year. The vision for the series was to provide the entire community access to inspiring speakers who brought Western history to life.
The late Calvin Horn was one of New Mexico’s most beloved civic leaders. Together with his brother, H.B. Horn, he co-founded the successful Horn Oil Company. He created a loving family with Ruth Horn, with whom he had seven children. Ruth and Calvin shared a passion for learning and became lead supporters of Manzano Day School and UNM. Calvin established the Horn Publishing Company, which preserved New Mexico’s cultural heritage by publishing scholarly books on New Mexican and Southwestern history. He authored three books and edited several more.
Committed to serving his community, Calvin spent ten years in the New Mexico State House of Representatives, including a term as speaker, and was a UNM Regent from 1971-82, serving one term as President of the Regents. Calvin and Ruth also established Noonday Ministries at their First Baptist Church, provided food and assistance to the homeless.