FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Cindy Deppe, media relations, 641-269-4834

February 11, 2008

J.B. GRINNELL AND UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TOPICS OF DISCUSSION FOR GRINNELL COLLEGE LECTURE

GRINNELL, IA.- Sociologist Nicholas Young will present "The Social Structure of Freedom: Harriet Tubman, J.B. Grinnell, and the Rise of Insurgency in the Underground Railroad" at Grinnell College on Mon., Feb. 25. Young’s lecture, which is part of Black History Month activities on campus, will be at 8 p.m. in Room 101 of the Joe Rosenfield ’25 Center.

Young is currently leading a group of researchers in a study of the entrepreneurial and network linkages of the Underground Railroad. One of Young’s lecture examples will be town founder J.B. Grinnell, who was a staunch abolitionist and social reformer. In 1859, Grinnell harbored slave John Brown in the town’s stop on the Underground Railroad.

A former fellow with the Center for Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford University, Young holds a doctorate in sociology from the University of Chicago and has taught at the College of Wooster, the University of St. Thomas, and Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute. He will talk with Grinnell students about "Networks Matter: Social Protest, Social Networks, and Entrepreneurial Activism," at noon on Feb. 25.

Young’s visit to Grinnell is sponsored by the college’s Scholar-in-Residence program, the Center for Religion, Spirituality and Social Justice, and the Office of Multicultural Affairs. The Rosenfield Center is located at 1115 8th Ave. on the Grinnell College campus.

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