First off, there was a speaker from Mauritania (an West African country) speaking about slavery. He was born into slavery in the mid '40's and is now a a leader in the movement to eradicate the institution, which is still a big problem there. Does anyone know any details/history about this situation?
It brought home how little I know about Africa and how little the world cares about its plight. I suppose I already knew that, but it has more emotional impact when you actually see someone who's been through it. I don't think I've EVER read anything on Mauritania, anywhere. It practically doesn't exist as far as the West in concerned, and I'm sure you could say the same about many other African countries. Anyway, I enjoyed his talk.
Secondly, Howard Zinn gave a brief talk with a relatively lengthy question and answer session. He was quite good, although its hard to summarize his comments since they dealt with so many topics (in response to the questioning). Since it was a small crowd I was able to talk to him briefly afterwards. I remembered Marta complaining about his failure to mention the struggle disabled americans have fought over the years, so I asked him about it. He wasn't defensive at all, and in fact said that he had already sent a revised manuscript into the publisher and regretted the earlier omission.
Brett