Vol. 17, No. 24	March 19, 1998

Chuck Stone to speak April 3 on hate speech

Former Philadelphia Daily News columnist Chuck Stone, who taught journalism classes at UD for seven years, will return to campus for a lecture on Friday, April 3.

Stone, now Spearman Professor of Journalism at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, will discuss "Hate Speech and the First Amendment" at noon in the Class of 1941 Lecture Room of the Morris Library. The talk is free and open to the public.

A journalist for more than 25 years, Stone has written more than 4,000 newspaper columns, magazine stories and scholarly essays and is the author of three books, Tell It Like It Is, Back Political Power in America and a novel, King Strut.

During the early years of the civil rights movement, he was editor of three influential black newspapers, Harlem's New York Age, the Washington Afro-American and the Chicago Daily Defender. For three years, he was the chief administrative assistant to Harlem's charismatic and controversial Rep. Adam Clayton Powell Jr., writing Powell's speeches and helping to direct the strikingly successful legislative activities of the House Education and Labor Committee, which Powell chaired.

From 1972 to 1991, Stone was a political columnist and senior editor at the Philadelphia Daily News where his ongoing battles with Mayors Frank Rizzo and Wilson Goode made him the best-known journalist in the city. Stone's numerous awards include the 1993 Free Spirit Award from the Freedom Forum for his work as a champion of the First Amendment and two excellence in teaching awards, one from the University of North Carolina and one from UD.

Dennis Jackson, English and journalism, is writing a book about Stone, entitled, Chuck Stone: Man in the Middle: A Story of 'Audacious Black Power' in the Newsroom that will go to press by the year 2000.

Stone's UD appearance is sponsored by the Department of English, the journalism program, the Commission to Promote Racial and Cultural Diversity and the Morris Library. For more information, call the English department at 831- 1974.