IBF offering seminar on civil rights movement

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The Indiana Bar Foundation is offering a special program for attorneys to learn about the fight for civil rights in the movement’s birthplace.

In October, the weekend-long event, entitled “A Seminar on the Civil Rights Movement,” will feature lectures by historians, field trips to local historic sites and conversations with individuals who participated in the movement. The seminar will be Oct. 6 through 9 in Birmingham, Alabama, and includes up to 10 hours of continuing legal education credit.

The bar foundation, which is organizing the trip, has already signed-up 10 teachers and has about five slots still available for attorneys.

“Personally, it’s something that I want everybody to see and be able to go there,” said Collin Gruver, director of civic education programs at the bar foundation. He added the seminar not only looks at the mistakes of the past but also shows how a community came together to change society.

Gruver was part of the team from the IBF that participated in the seminar last year. Also attending were Charles Dunlap, executive director of the bar foundation, Senior Judge Larry McKinney of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, and IBF board of directors’ member Carl Hayes, a partner at Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP.
 
Participants in the program will visit the 16th Street Baptist Church which was bombed in September 1963, killing four young girls. One of the survivors will speak at the church. Also, the breakfast on the final day of the seminar will include a presentation by the two attorneys who prosecuted the individuals responsible for the tragedy.

The entire event will be a mix of the law and history, Gruver said. He sees the seminar as fitting into the bar foundation’s mission to strengthen the appreciation for the rule of law. A former high school history and government teacher, Gruver said the civil rights movement demonstrated the fundamental idea he taught his students that the law will be applied equally to everyone.

The cost of the seminar and CLE credits is $1,000. Travel and lodging are extra. The deadline to register is Friday.

For more information, contact Lily Lawson of the IBF at 317-269-2415 or [email protected].

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