Film screening, discussion on W.E.B. Du Bois to be held tonight

In honor of Black History Month, the Film Studies Center is co-sponsoring a screening of the acclaimed documentary W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography in Four Voices, at 7 p.m. today, Feb. 20, in the Film Studies Center Auditorium, Cobb 307. The film is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race, Politics & Culture, the Cinema & Media Studies Program, the Coordinating Council for Minority Issues and the Mass Culture Workshop, and will be followed by a panel discussion with Thomas Holt, the James Westfall Thomson Professor in History, Lily Golden of Chicago State and Adolph Reed of Northwestern.

The life of William Edward Burghardt Du Bois provides a unique perspective on an entire century of African-American history. Born just three years after the end of the Civil War, Du Bois witnessed the end of Reconstruction, the imposition of Jim Crow laws, the birth and growth of black liberation struggles, Pan-Africanism and the African independence movements, and the emergence of the Civil Rights Movement.

Directed by Louis Massiah, the film about the noted scholar and activist spans a century of African-American history and features four prominent African-American writers -- Amiri Baraka, Wesley Brown, Thulani Davis and the late Toni Cade Bambara -- who narrate successive periods of Du Bois' life and reflect upon his impact on their work.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 702-8596.