Knowing Yesterday, Shaping Tomorrow: The Inaugural Lou Kushnick Memorial Lecture with Professor Abdul Alkalimat
The Ahmed Iqbal Ullah Education Trust, in partnership with the University of Manchester, is launching a new annual lecture in honour of our founder, Professor Lou Kushnick. Lou was a tireless advocate for anti‑racist education and a driving force behind both the Education Trust and the RACE Centre. Since his death in early 2025, he has been deeply missed.
This new lecture series celebrates his legacy, beginning with an inaugural talk by Professor Abdul Alkalimat. Professor Alkalimat – internationally respected scholar-activist and a founding figure in Black Studies in the United States – was a friend and colleague of Lou’s.
Professor Alkalimat opens this new lecture series by commemorating Lou’s important work. He will respond to four key questions: Who was Lou Kushnick? Why am I speaking about him? Why was he concerned about racism? And why should we be concerned about racism? His perspective will reflect his African American identity, but will also connect with the trans-Atlantic perspective he shared with Lou.
We welcome friends observing Ramadan and our programme will allow for Maghrib and Iftar.
There is a dedicated prayer space in Manchester Central Library.
Complimentary hot food, tea and coffee will be provided.
Abdul Alkalimat (born Gerald A. McWorter) is a founder of the field of Black Studies and author of many books and papers about Black liberation. He wrote the first college textbook for the field, Introduction to Afro-American Studies, which has seen seven editions, the last one free and online. A lifelong scholar-activist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, he has lectured, taught, and directed academic programs across the US, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe, and China. Two of his early contributions were serving as chair of the Chicago chapter of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and co-founding the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) in 1967. Raised in Chicago’s Cabrini Rowhouses, he is now professor emeritus of African American Studies and Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.
His most recent books are:
* The History of Black Studies, published by Pluto Press 2021
* Dialectics of Liberation: The African Liberation Support Committee, published by Africa World Press 2022
* The Wall of Respect: Public Art and Black Liberation in 1960s Chicago, co-edited with Romi Crawford and Rebecca Zorach and published by Northwestern University Press 2017
* New Philadelphia, written by Gerald A. McWorter and Kate Williams-McWorter for the New Philadelphia (IL) Association and published by Path Press 2018.
Much of his work is freely available at http://www.alkalimat.org.
