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"Lethal Weapon" star at ILR

Movie star Danny Glover will meet with ILR students in two of Professor Rick Hurd's classes next week.

An outspoken supporter of worker rights, he was recruited for the campus visit by Bruce Raynor '72, a university trustee who teaches "Contemporary Labor Issues" with ILR School Professor Rick Hurd. Glover will speak in two ILR classes next Tuesday (Sept. 25).

Glover's major event in Ithaca will be "Race. Art. Activism: A Conversation with Danny Glover" from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Africana Studies & Research Center.

Glover will talk with Noliwe Rooks, associate professor of Africana Studies and Feminist, Gender Sexuality Studies; Sabine Haenni, associate professor of Film and American Studies, and Marc Bayard, executive director of the Worker Institute at Cornell. The institute is part of the ILR School.

Tickets are free, but must be obtained before the event. Africana plans to announce this week how tickets will be distributed.

Tall, lanky and raspy voiced, Glover is perhaps best known for his roles in movies such as "Lethal Weapon" and "The Color Purple."

Also a philanthropist, Glover has supported projects for Haiti, worker rights, AIDS research and his mother's alma mater — Paine College in Augusta, Ga.

Raynor is a former executive vice president of SEIU and former president of Workers United (2009-2011), UNITE-HERE (2004-2009) and UNITE (2001-2004).

For years, he and Glover have attended union-related events together. This summer, they met with pro-union Nissan workers in Mississippi.

Glover has credited unions with providing his family with health care during his childhood in San Francisco.

On Monday (Sept. 24), two films Glover produced will be shown in the Film Forum (B21) at the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, 430 College Ave. Screenings are free and open to the public.

The Black Power Mixtape 1967-75 will be shown at 4:30 p.m. Bamako will be shown at 7 p.m. Rooks and Haenni will introduce the films and facilitate discussion after they are shown. Glover will not make appearances in Ithaca until Tuesday.

On Tuesday, the 66-year-old film star speaks in two ILR classes, visits with Ithaca youth, and meets with Ujamaa residents and members of the Cornell Organization for Labor Action.

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