Children of civil rights leaders in South Africa and the United States will discuss the history and future of their nation's human rights movement and reflect on their personal experiences of growing up in activist families, during an international conference hosted by the University in the ballroom of Lewis B. Rome Commons in South Campus, on Thursday, Feb. 3, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The conference, "Building Upon Legacies: Children of Human Rights Struggles," will feature internationally known speakers including: Sheila Sisulu, South Africa's Ambassador to Washington; Dumisa Ntsebeza, chief investigator and judge, South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission; and Sanford Cloud Jr., president of the National Conference for Community and Justice.

Other speakers are Nkosinathi Biko, son of Steve Biko, slain South African student leader; Michael Brown, son of the late Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown; Meredith Carlson Daly, daughter of Joel Carlson, leading defense attorney for Winnie Mandela and other black South Africans during the apartheid era; Paul Robeson Jr.; Paula Young Shelton, daughter of civil rights leader, Ambassador Andrew Young; Gillian Slovo, daughter of Ruth First, slain intellectual and anti-apartheid activist, and Joe Slovo, an anti-apartheid activist and Minister of Housing in Nelson Mandela's government; Nontombi Naomi Tutu, daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and Somadoda Fikeni, an anti-apartheid activist who was detained six times during the apartheid era.

The conference is sponsored by the Comparative Human Rights Project of the University of Connecticut-African National Congress Partnership. The partnership also is bringing copies of ANC archival materials to UConn, sponsoring an oral history of South African anti-apartheid leaders and assisting in the training of South Africans.

To register, call the UConn-ANC Partnership at (860) 486-0647 or University Events at (860) 486-1001.

Karen Grava