For Bobby J. Smith II, Ph.D. ’18, now an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, returning to Cornell to give the inaugural Bouchet Lecture on Nov. 14 is a full-circle moment.

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The lecture, to be held Nov. 14 at 3:30 p.m. in G10 Biotechnology Building, will encourage attendees to reconsider how they think and talk about food, focusing on the forgotten civil rights activist L.C. Dorsey and her role as the leader of the North Bolivar County Farm Cooperative: a Black food network of activists, community members, health care professionals and farmers.

Titled “The Emancipatory Vision of L.C. Dorsey: Black Food Futures and the Struggle for Civil Rights,” the talk will draw on research from Smith’s award-winning book, “Food Power Politics: The Food Story of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement” – the origins for which came about while a doctoral student at Cornell.

Read more on the Graduate School website.