The Prospect for Freedom: W. Miller Barbour’s Human Rights Journey
- Sat, Nov 22
Run Time: 120 min.
William (Wilbur) Miller Barbour, was one of the first African Americans in Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania to graduate from college; the second African American to graduate from Elizabethtown College, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; the First African American student athlete to play college football in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania; the First Executive Secretary for the National Urban League in Denver, Colorado; the First Director of the National Urban League Western Field Office in Los Angeles, California. Barbour was a human rights activist focused on establishing racial economic justice in the years before the American Civil Rights Movement. Barbour defined the two main goals of the civil rights movement ending racial discrimination and segregation in (1) employment and (2) housing. The culmination of Barbour’s racial economic justice was the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom (1963) and all his social racial economic justice goals were achieved through Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society civil rights legislation. This is a documentary of Barbour’s life and legacy.