Media personality Tavis Smiley and Princeton Professor Cornel West will bring their “Poverty Manifesto” lecture tour to Butler University’s Clowes Memorial Hall at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 18.
Admission is free and open to the public without tickets.
The tour coincides with the publication of their new book, The Rich and the Rest of Us, which advocates a new socioeconomic system based on a foundation of fundamental fairness. The authors say their proposed system would prioritize and deliver living-wage jobs, support for single mothers, and pragmatic training and employment of low-skilled and unskilled workers so that all Americans have a chance to lift themselves out of poverty.
The event will feature both speakers for approximately 20 minutes each, a 20-minute question-and-answer session, and a book signing.
Kokomo native Smiley hosts the late-night television talk show “Tavis Smiley” on PBS and “The Tavis Smiley Show,” distributed by Public Radio International (PRI). He is also co-host of “Smiley & West” (PRI). In addition to his radio and television work, Smiley has written 16 books, including The New York Times best-selling memoir What I Know for Sure and the book he edited, the No. 1 New York Times bestseller Covenant With Black America.
Educator and philosopher West is the Class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton University. Known as one of America’s most gifted, provocative, and important democratic intellectuals, he is the author of the contemporary classic Race Matters, which changed the course of America’s dialogue on race and justice; The New York Times bestseller Democracy Matters; and the memoir Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. He is the author of 17 other texts and the recipient of the American Book Award.
