Screening of JFK: The Last Speech at the GLOBE scheduled for Wednesday, April 24th at 5-7 PM
There will be a screening of the film JFK: The Last Speech at the GLOBE scheduled for Wednesday, April 24th at 5-7 PM. The film was put together by Amherst College classmates of Prof. Peter Easton starting at their 50th reunion to commemorate President Kennedy’s visit to the campus in October 1963 – just a month before his assassination – to take part in the groundbreaking for the Robert Frost Memorial Library and deliver a remarkable speech, during which he stressed the relation of poetry and power, the role of the liberal arts in a democracy and the obligation on those who benefit from higher education to serve the public good. It was his last major speech. You can find more detail on the film itself at https://www.jfkthelastspeech.org/ , including – if you click on “The Film” up top – a full trailer. “Somehow the film seems particularly a propos in our present national circumstances,” says Peter Easton.
The Wednesday April 24th event is co-sponsored by the Florida State University Center for the Advancement of Human Rights and the Peace Corps. Dr. Stacey Rutledge (College of Education) will facilitate the discussion with four panelists: faculty from the English and History Departments concerned with the relation of poetry to politics and the course of our democracy and two returned Peace Corps volunteers now working for the State of Florida and continuing their mission of service.