March 14, 2003

Actor and activist Danny Glover is Fr. Carter Lecture Series speaker

The eighth annual Fr. Carter Lecture Series will feature actor and political activist Danny Glover on April 22, at 7 p.m., in Roussel Hall. The event is open to the public.

Glover will be joined by long-time friend Felix Justice in a question-and-answer type program. The two have performed several two-person shows including one featuring the words of Langston Hughes and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and another portraying labor leader and social activist A. Philip Randolph and actor and political activist Paul Robeson.

Glover is an advocate for human rights issues including abolition of the death penalty and the fight against AIDS. Most recently, he has been active in peace demonstrations. Glover has received the Marian Anderson Award, honoring artists whose leadership benefits humanity.

A native of San Francisco, Glover attended San Francisco State College and trained at the Black Actors' Workshop of the American Conservatory Theatre. Debuting as an actor in 1979 in a Clint Eastwood film, Escape from Alcatraz, his career has continued to grow. He appeared in Witness with Harrison Ford in 1984 and in Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated production of The Color Purple, based on the novel by Alice Walker. Perhaps his greatest film successes have been the Lethal Weapon film series with Mel Gibson.

In May 2003, he will return to the Broadway stage in the revival of Athol Fugard's Master Haroldand the Boys.

This lecture series honors Loyola's longest-tenured president, the Rev. James C. Carter, S.J., who served at the university for 20 years. The series seeks to feature a speaker of national prominence whose humanity and character have enabled him or her to promote social justice in his or her life and work. Past speakers have included Susan Sarandon, Sister Helen Prejean, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Beck Weathers, Jerry Greenfield of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream, Edward James Olmos, and Erin Brockovich. Last year's speaker was Peter Bergen, a war correspondent and expert on global terrorism who had interviewed Osama bin Laden face-to-face.