An Act of Defiance
Activist and film maker Bree Newsome will come to Lehigh for a talk that will be moderated by students and faculty. Although she is perhaps best known for climbing up the South Carolina Statehouse flagpole to remove the Confederate flag in the wake of the shooting of nine church members at the state’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Newsome has long been engaged on social and political issues. Her June 28, 2015 act of defiance involving the Confederate flag led to her arrest for defacing a monument on state grounds. In 2013, she was arrested at a sit-in at the office of then North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis for protesting the state’s restrictive voter ID law.
A graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, Newsome earned her BFA in film and television. While still in high school, Newsome created an animated short, The Three Princes of Idea, which earned her a $40,000 scholarship from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. At NYU, she wrote and directed a humorous public service announcement called YOUR BALLOT, YOUR VOICE encouraging youth voter turnout. The PSA went on to win Grand Prize in a PSA competition sponsored by Tisch and MTV. Newsome's short film, the award-winning Wake, recently made its national television debut on the ASPIREtv network.
Prior to her talk at Lehigh, Wake, will be screened. A talk moderated by Dr. Darius Omar Williams, Assistant Professor of Theatre, will follow the screening.