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"Sister Dorothy Kazel: * * * * * Thursday 7:30 p.m. Richardson Auditorium Morse-Ingersoll Hall * * * * * Free and open to the public. |
The idea of ending up in prison didn’t stop retired public school superintendent and Beloit College alumnus Philip Gates from joining 22,000 other people to protest the U.S. military combat-training school known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). Last fall—along with 15 other protestors—the 70-year-old trespassed onto the base and was arrested for his act of civil disobedience. He was ultimately sentenced to 60 days at a Los Angeles, Calif., detention center.
Now Gates and his wife, Beloit College alumna Lorie Smith Gates, are returning to Beloit to share their experiences in a colloquium sponsored by the Duffy Community Partnerships Program. They will speak about their protests and the activities of WHINSEC in "From Colombia, South America, to Columbus, Ga.: Taking Truth to Power" on Thursday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m., in Richardson Auditorium, in Morse-Ingersoll Hall, on the Beloit College campus.
“Thousands of innocents have been killed by graduates (of WHINSEC) in one or more of 22 Latin American countries that are sending trainees to the school in Columbus, Georgia,” contends Gates. The institute—formerly known as the School of the Americas—has trained approximately 63,000 Latin American personnel. Having worked the summer of 2005 in Colombia on a church service project, Gates became concerned about the activities of those who attended the controversial training program. He maintains that “Hundreds (trained at WHINSEC) return to their home countries and perpetrate violent acts in violation of citizens’ human rights.”
While at Beloit, Lorie Smith Gates will present a dramatization of the life of Sister Dorothy Kazel, one of four American churchwomen killed in El Salvador in 1980.
Beloit College sociology instructor Carol Wickersham, who serves as coordinator of the Duffy Community Partnerships Program, invited Phil and Lorie Gates to campus to speak about their activism. “I think he raises the issue of one avenue of social good, when other avenues of change have not been effective,” she says.
The Duffy Community Partnerships Program began four years ago. It places Beloit College students in internships throughout the community and also sponsors speakers at the college. Beloit College alumnus James Duffy, the founder of the program and a former president of the ABC television network, spoke four years ago; the following year, author Mary Pattillo spoke about issues of urban redevelopment. Last year, Masankho Banda, a dancer from Malawi who uses art for social change, visited the college.
For more information, contact Carol Wickersham at wickersh@beloit.edu.