WS Chronicle

Winston-Salem State University professor Larry Little will speak at Davidson College on Monday, Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. in the Brown Atrium of the Alvarez College Union. His address is free and open to the public. The college is located 20 miles north of Charlotte in the town of Davidson.

Little’s appearance is part of the college’s Black History Month activities, which also included a scheduled appearance by Angela Davis on Tuesday. Little will talk about the formation of Winston-Salem’s Black Panther Party chapter, which he helped lead.

Founded in 1969, the Winston-Salem Black Panther chapter was the first of its kind in the South. Rooted in the city’s impoverished African-American neighborhoods, it gave a voice to dispossessed and suffering communities. Under Little’s influence, the chapter implemented an effective community service program that included the nationally-noted J. Waddell People’s Free Ambulance Service. Criticized for its militancy and leftist rhetoric, the chapter also had to fight police violence and FBI infiltration.

The local Black Panther chapter’s historical significance was immortalized last year with the installation of a Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission marker near the Party’s former headquarters.

Little, a WSSU associate professor of political science, will be joined at the discussion, which has as its topic, “African Americans and the Struggle Against Racism in Post-Nazi Germany and Nixon’s United States,” by black WWII veteran Ross Walker. Walker, 88, fought in Germany in 1945. The Charlotte native will discuss fighting racism at home and abroad.

The men’s appearances will occur in conjunction with the campus exhibit, “The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs and Germany,” a collection of photographs and video created by the German Historical Institute in Washington, D.C., Vassar College, and the University of Heidelberg (Germany).