ATTENTION: Assignment Editors

05 September 2002
Contact: Carol Hyman
(510) 643-7944

WHAT:
The opening reception for a multimedia exhibit on Mary Baker Eddy, a prominent author, businesswoman and religious leader. The exhibit explores Eddy's life through news clippings, photographs and listening stations. It will be followed by a discussion on the history of women as activists.

WHEN:
3 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 10. The exhibit runs through Oct. 10.

WHERE:
East Pauley Ballroom, Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, UC Berkeley.

WHO:
Speakers at the event will include:

* Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Marva Beals, one of nine black students to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., after the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown vs. Board of Education. She is author of "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High."

* Joni Overton-Jung, an expert on Eddy's writings about practical spirituality in relation to individual activism in communities.

BACKGROUND:
The exhibit, "This is woman's hour...," was prepared by The Writings of Mary Baker Eddy, a Boston-based organization, in conjunction with the National Park Service and featured as an "untold story" at the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1998. Since then, it has been displayed throughout the United States.

It appears at UC Berkeley through the joint sponsorship of UC Berkeley's Women's Studies Department and The Writings of Mary Baker Eddy.

Beals used her personal diaries to write "Warriors Don't Cry," a riveting account of her junior year at Central High - one filled with telephone threats, rogue police, fireball and acid-throwing attacks, economic blackmail, and finally, a price upon the young woman's head.

Overton-Jung recently toured South Africa. Her visit included engagements with social workers and a community-based training and healing center dealing with domestic violence.

The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.