Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA) will speak 10am this Thursday at the Hinckley Institute, University of Utah (255 Orson Spencer Hall).  Her topic is "After the Dream: Waking Up to Racism, Inequality and Militarism."

Barbara Jean Lee is the U.S. Representative for California's 13th congressional district, serving East Bay voters from 1998 to 2013 during a time when the region was designated California's 9th congressional district. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She was the first woman to represent the 9th district and is also the first woman to represent the 13th district [basically same district, new name].  Lee was the Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and was the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Lee is notable as the only member of either house of Congress to vote against the authorization of use of force following the September 11, 2001 attacks.  This made her a hero among many in the anti-war movement.  Lee has been a vocal critic of the war in Iraq and supports legislation creating a Department of Peace. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Lee>

Congresswoman Lee was invited here by the Peace Advocacy Coalition which includes activists from WCPJ, Utahns for a Just Peace in the Holy Land, the Gandhi Alliance, and individuals from peace and justice, human rights and social science programs at Utah Valley University, Salt Lake Community College, Westminster College and University of Utah.  The P.A.C. chose "After the Dream: Waking Up to Racism, Inequality and Militarism" as our 2016 annual project theme in response to growing concern about police violence and racism, economic inequality and endless U.S. war. 

After the passage of the 1964 civil rights and 1965 voting rights acts by the U.S. Congress, Martin Luther King, Jr. continued his movement building activism with a new campaign against these "triple evils" of racism, poverty and war.  It was in this context that King spoke out against the Vietnam war in his famous April 4, 1967 "Beyond Vietnam" speech <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Vietnam:_A_Time_to_Break_Silence>.  King was building the "Poor Peoples Campaign" for a massive May 1968 protest to be ongoing in Washington, D.C. and supporting the strike of Memphis sanitation workers for improved wages, conditions and labor union recognition when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.