30th Annual Human Rights Festival , Downtown Athens, GA - May 3-4, 2008

The Athens Human Rights Festival brings together political activists, musicians
and artists in a call for action on human rights issues as well as a celebration
of advances in the area of human rights.

2008 Festival Overview

For three decades the Athens Human Rights Festival has been a springtime political and cultural event that enlivens downtown Athens with speeches, music, street theater, and family-friendly fun in an outdoor setting. This year's 30th Annual Athens Human Rights Festival marks a major milestone in the long histroy of the event--thirty years of a rights festival that has become an activist tradition and institution here in a town that calls itself the Classic City.

The Athens Human Rights Festical had its beginnings as a living memorial to the Americans who were killed and wounded by police and National Guard gunmen during campus protests at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State College in Mississippi just ten days apart in May 1970. The connection between Kent State, Jackson State and the Athens Human Rights Festival will be underlined like never before this year with rights fest speeches by Dr. Gene Young, a longtime civil rights crusader who was an eyewitness to the campus killings at Jackson State in 1970. Dr. Young embodies the history of the human rights movement. In 1963, when he was just 12 years old, he was arrested during a civil rights protest in his hometown of Jackson, Mississippi. Later that year he was part of a teeming multitude that packed the National Mall in Washington when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his soaring "I Have a Dream" speech.

Dr. Young knew the martyred civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who was murdered in Mississippi , and in his 45 years of service to the movement, Dr. Young has been the subject of numerous articles and an interview by NBC newsman Tom Brokaw. He has won an award for a radio reading of Dr. King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and he is mentioned in "Lynch Street," author Tim Spofford's definitive book about the Jackson State incident. With his rich and authoritative voice, Dr. Young is an accomplished orator whose speeches are educational and illuminating for his audiences. Dr. Gene Young is history come to life, and he is an honored guest at this year's 30th Annual Athens Human Righes Festival.

The milestone 30th Annual Athens Human Rights Festival is dedicated this year to Eve Carson, Athenian and friend of the festival.

This year's 30th Annual Athens Human Rights Festival promises to be an enjoyable and educational experience for all who attend. It embodies the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who called for all races and classes to be united in a "beloved community." The Human Rights Festival is a beloved community on the town square of the Classic City. Welcome to our community!

http://www.athenshumanrightsfest.org/index.html