Inside Newark’ Author Robert Curvin Returns to Rutgers University-Newark for Book Talk with Kenneth Jackson
SAVE THE DATE: DEC. 3
Advocate, activist, author and professor Dr. Robert Curvin will return to his alma mater, Rutgers University-Newark (RU-N), on Dec. 3 for “Inside Newark: A Conversation with Robert Curvin and Kenneth Jackson.” Curvin will discuss his latest book, Inside Newark: Decline, Rebellion, and the Search for Transformation (2014, Rutgers University Press) with historian and social scientist Dr. Kenneth T. Jackson, Columbia University Jacques Barzun Professor of History and Social Sciences.
The program will consist of readings from Curvin’s book and insightful analyses and discussions on the history and future of Newark. Copies of Inside Newark will be available for purchase and signing. The free public program begins at 4 p.m. in the Paul Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., on the RU-N campus. A reception with light refreshments will follow the discussion. Seating is limited; pre-registration is required: http://www.alumni.rutgers.edu/s/896/index.aspx?sid=896&gid=1&pgid=6409&crid=0&calpgid=13&calcid=664
Curvin’s latest book traces Newark’s history from the 1950s -- when the city was a thriving industrial center -- to the era of Mayor Cory Booker. He approaches his story “both as an insider who is rooting for Newark, and as an objective social scientist illuminating the causes and effects of sweeping changes in the city,” according to the publisher. In praising the book, the Star-Ledger declared that “anyone who resides in or near Newark, or once did, or feels like a stakeholder in the great urban outcome, should dwell deeply on his journey.”(June 28, 2014, http://bit.ly/1nx28hw )
Jackson is a frequent television guest best known as an urban historian.
Curvin earned his undergraduate degree in 1960 from the Newark College of Arts and Sciences at RU-N. He went on to earn an MSW from the Rutgers School of Social Work in 1967 and his Ph.D in political science from Princeton University.
Curvin devoted 12 years to the Ford Foundation before becoming president of the Greentree Foundation, a trust established by the late Mrs. John Hay Whitney to adapt the Whitneys' 400-acre Long Island estate into a retreat center for the United Nations and other international organizations. Curvin, a former dean of the Milano School of Management and Urban Policy at New School University and a past director of the Revson Foundation, has been a trustee of Fund for the City of New York, the Victoria Foundation, Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Thirteen/WNET, and Princeton University.
While a member of the editorial board of The New York Times from 1978–84, Curvin brought national attention to issues of social justice, equality, and homelessness. He coauthored Blackout Looting, about the violence and vandalism during the 1977 blackout in New York. He is a founder of Newark’s New Community Corporation (one of the first of its kind) and a past leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, serving as Newark chapter head and as national vice chair.
Media contact: Carla Capizzi, capizzi@rutgers.edu