Convocation: Jonathan Kozol

After being fired from his teaching job for reading a Langston Hughes poem to his students, Jonathan Kozol wrote "Death at an Early Age," which put urban schools on America's political agenda. He has since tackled illiteracy, homelessness, and educational equality, earning himself the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and the Conscience in Media Award for his efforts. He has written many books, including "Amazing Grace: The Lives of Children and the Conscience of a Nation"; "Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope"; "Savage Inequalities" and, most recently, "The Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America". Kozol is an eloquent spokesperson for the disenfranchised, and explores the reflections of children surviving and thriving in America's most violent communities. The title of his presentation is "The Shame of the Nation."