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Distinguished journalist, educator and activist Charles E. Cobb will deliver the 2021 African American History Month Lecture on Tuesday, February 23 AT 6:30pm EST via Zoom. Cobb is a founding member of the National Association of Black Journalists. As a field secretary with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), he originated the idea of Freedom Schools as a part of the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project. The memo he wrote proposing Freedom Schools as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project described a project where schools should be designed to “fill an intellectual and creative vacuum in the lives of young Negro Mississippians.” Cobb began his journalism career in 1974 as a reporter for WHUR Radio in Washington, DC. In 1976, he joined the staff of National Public Radio as a foreign affairs reporter for NPR’s first regular coverage of Africa.