The Roots to open TWC anniversary celebration

Celebrating its 30th anniversary next September, the Third World Center is kicking off a year-long celebration this weekend with a series of events, featuring a concert in Dillon Gym tomorrow night by the hip-hop group The Roots.

The concert launches a one-year program of lectures and social events focusing on social justice — an issue not fully understood or addressed on campus, according to TWC director Heddye Ducree.

"We can't forget the struggles of our people wherever we are," Ducree said. "We've sort of walked back in time recently," she added, noting recent incidents such as the fatal dragging of a black man in Texas and the killing of a gay college student in Wyoming two years ago.

As part of the program, Angela Davis — a history of consciousness professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz — will speak tonight on the impact of the burgeoning prison population on American society.

"Davis was a friend of the four young girls who died in the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing," Ducree noted. "She's just a very brave person and one who calls on America to really examine itself."

TWC governance board chair Andria Boateng '02 explained the significance of tomorrow's concert by The Roots. "Unlike many music groups today, their music has messages," she said. "It's conscious hip-hop — they have songs about social justice."

After this weekend, the anniversary celebration will continue with many activities. A roundtable discussion with alumni is scheduled for October, and a forum concerning the name of the TWC will meet Nov. 30.

On Feb. 8, Randall Robinson, the author of the book "The Debt," will give a lecture and hold a book signing. Robinson's book addresses the relations between Africa and the United States and how the two can overcome the legacy of slavery, according to Boateng.

Helen Zia '73, a member of the first co-educational class at Princeton, will speak in March on the experience of Asians in America. A former executive editor and current contributing editor to Ms. magazine and author of "Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People," Zia was recently named one of the most influential Asian Americans of the 1990s by A. magazine.

"She will talk about her experience in Princeton right when TWC was being formulated, relating social justice and how Princeton fits in it," former TWC governance board chair Jane Liu '01 said. "This is an important event because she is a Princeton alum and understands how far Princeton has come. She was right here when Princeton was first confronting the minority issue."

The TWC was founded in September 1971 because of an examination of minority issues at Princeton following a series of racially motivated incidents on campus. In 1969, a white student urinated on a black student's head after he complained about the noise level at the white student's party.

Consequent sit-ins prompted the University to dedicate a space for minority students. "TWC stands as a symbolic reference . . . on this campus [of] the hard work of students over the years who mobilized the campus," Ducree said. "They were persons who felt a sense of unrest with the inequities and took a stand."