By Hazel Scott/ASU
The Chief Legal Officer for the Southern Poverty Law Center, Derwyn Bunton, is the
keynote speaker for Alabama State University’s Department of History and Political
Science Black History Month Program.
Bunton will explore this year’s National Black History Month theme – “Black Resistance” – on
Tuesday, February 28, from 11 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. in ASU’s Ralph D. Abernathy Hall
Auditorium.The event is open to the public.
Derryn Moten, chair of the Department of History and Political Science, said in the
more than 400 years that Black people have been in America, resistance has taken on
many forms — from slave revolts and insurrections to boycotts, protests and marches.
“Mr. Bunton will talk about How African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing
oppressions, and how the resilience of a people who not only struggled for freedom
and justice but also whose resistance leaves a legacy of triumph,” Moten said.
Moten pointed out that by resisting, Black people have achieved triumphs, successes,
and progress as seen at the end of slavery, dismantling of Jim and Jane Crow segregation
in the South, increased political representation at all levels of government, desegregation
of educational institutions, the passage of Civil Rights Act of 1964, and more.
More about Derwyn Bunton
As SPLC’s Chief Legal Officer, Bunton is responsible for the strategic direction of
the SPLC’s litigation to ensure that every case its attorneys pursue advances the
organization’s four key impact goals: fighting to protect democracy, dismantling white
supremacy, eradicating poverty and ending mass incarceration.
Previously, Bunton led the Orleans Public Defenders office in Louisiana, where he
drew attention from state and national media for his dogged defense of indigent defendant
rights. Under his leadership, the office won major awards for outstanding achievement
in providing legal defense for indigent people from the National Legal Aid & Defender
Association, the National Association for Public Defense and the Southern Center for
Human Rights.