AFRO-RUSSIAN
AUTHOR AND SCHOLAR OF JEWISH DESCENT
TO
DISCUSS HER LATEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY
PHILADELPHIA, PA –
October 23, 2003 –
On Sunday, November
9, 2003, International House and the Philadelphia chapter of
the National Coalition of 100 Black Women will present an intriguing,
free-to-the-public afternoon with Afro-Russian author and scholar
Dr. Lily Golden. Appearing in Philadelphia for the first time,
Dr. Golden will lead a captivating discussion on the fundamental
issues of personal identity, race and socio-politics that are
so vividly presented in her acclaimed autobiography My Long
Journey Home. After the discussion, audience members will
have the opportunity to ask questions and speak one-on-one with
the author at a book-signing reception.
The event begins at 3:00 p.m. at International
House. Oliver Franklin, President and CEO, will introduce Dr.
Golden, followed by a reading and discussion with the author.
Audience participation is strongly encouraged. The book-signing
reception begins at 4:00 p.m. Drinks and light hors d'oeuvres
will be served.
The daughter of Oliver
Golden, an African-American expatriate and agrarian activist
of the early 1900s, and Bertha Bialek, youngest daughter of
Polish-American émigrés of Jewish descent, Lily
Golden has a special place in history. In My Long Journey
Home, Golden provides a connection between the contemporary
and historical relationships of America, Africa and Russia,
and offers a distinctly different and refreshing point of view
on the lives and experiences of the revolutionized nation formerly
known as the Soviet Union. The alluring and romantic, sometimes
bitterly painful, yet always vivid and intimate details of her
life as a dark-skinned Russian surviving in and struggling against
turbulent changes brings her tale of a sometimes charmed, sometimes
challenged existence full circle in her descriptions of her
ultimate contact with distant relatives in the United States.
She recounts everything from her remarkable friendship with
the daughter of Joseph Stalin and her father’s relationships
with American scholar and performer Paul Roberson and social
researcher and scholar W.E.B. Dubois, to allowing the reader
sobering access into her lifelong revelation that family and
community ties are boundless by time and geography.
Dr. Golden was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan,
in the former Soviet Union to an African-American father and
a Jewish-American mother. Her father, Oliver Golden, had studied
agriculture at Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University)
in Alabama under the tutelage of his mentor, Dr. George Washington
Carver. Mr. Golden found that his skills in cotton farming technology
were in great demand when he first visited the USSR in 1924.
In 1931, he immigrated there with his bride, Bertha, and 16
other African-American agriculturalists to develop the cotton
industry in Uzbekistan.
In 1952, Lily Golden left Uzbekistan
for Moscow and became the first person of African descent to
study at Moscow State University. She later received her doctorate
from the Soviet Academy of Science. In 1987, Dr. Golden visited
the U.S. for the first time as a member of a peace delegation
from the Soviet Union. For the next five years, for three months
each year, she returned to the United States to lecture around
the country. During her 1989 visit, she and her daughter appeared
on ABC’s “20/20” and were subsequently contacted
by relatives living in Chicago, which she now calls her second
home.
Dr. Golden has lectured
across Russia and the former Soviet Union, Europe, Africa and
the United States and is a prominent voice in many international
organizations including the American Citizens Initiative, the
International Cross-Cultural Black Women’s Studies Institute,
where she serves on the Council of Elders, and is founder and
board member of the Russian African Business Council based in
Moscow. Dr. Golden has been a visiting professor at Lumumba
University in Moscow, the Institute of Asia and Africa at Moscow
State University, the Department of African Ethnology at Leningrad
University and the History Department at Tbilisi University
of Georgia, USSR. In the United States, she served for ten years
as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Chicago State University.
Her other books include Africans in Russia, African Music
and the African Encyclopedia Directory.
Founded in 1910,
International House is a dynamic program center for all Philadelphians
interested in world culture and a residential community for
350 students, scholars and professional trainees from over 80
countries, including the U.S., representing numerous academic
institutions. Through cultural, social and educational programs,
including music, dance, art, literature and food, the acclaimed
Film @ International House and the Spoken English Program, this
independent non-profit organization brings people from different
countries and cultures together as a community to learn about
and from each other in order to promote mutual tolerance and
respect.
# # #
Contact: 215-895-6569
Hotline: 215-895-6537
Email: programs@ihphilly.org
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