It’s the second day of the John Hope Franklin Center for Reconciliation’s national symposium, which this year is themed “The Politics of Reconciliation.”
Two events tonight are free and open to the public. The first, at 3:30, is a town hall meeting featuring former Tulsa Mayors Kathy Taylor and Susan Savage and former Denver Mayor Wellington E. Webb.
The second is a keynote address featuring the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi, a professor the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne’s Center for South Asia and Middle Eastern Studies.
He’s an expert on reconciliation efforts around the world. He says he doesn’t have too much knowledge of Tulsa’s particular situation, but he’s taking the opportunity while he’s here to learn more.
“Here you do have, not just, you might say, the white and black question,” he said, “but you have also the Native Americans, and you have now the Hispanics.”
“I know also that Oklahoma has great economic challenges,” he added. “The poverty question is very dominant here too. So the mix of all these issues makes Oklahoma and Tulsa very important. If some advances can be achieved here, it would be a great story for everywhere else.”
He says tonight he’ll be speaking about his famous ancestor and encouraging awareness of reconciliation efforts outside of America.
Both events will be at the Hyatt Regency downtown.
Listen here to Professor Gandhi talk about his grandfather’s influence on his own career.