CONTENT OF AFRICAN-AMERICANS' CHARACTER DISCUSSED AT PITT LAW SCHOOL

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 5 -- Using his extensive collection of rare books and historical materials on the African-American experience, attorney Michael Benjamin will examine ways in which black Americans have overcome prejudice and oppression through "the content of their character" in a presentation at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Benjamin, a 1976 graduate of the Pitt Law School, will speak Thursday, Jan. 15, from 5-7 p.m. in the law school's Teplitz Memorial Court Room.

In his talk, titled "The Content of Character: A Cultural Historical Perspective," Benjamin will use images selected from his 400-piece collection of African-American literature, and will combine those images with other historical evidence, such as comments by Thomas Jefferson questioning Africans' capacities and the Dred Scott decision of 1857, to show the adversity faced by persons of African descent in 18th and 19th-century America.

"My talk will suggest that these lives reflect the character to which Reverend King referred, when he suggested the importance of evaluating people based on character rather than color of skin," Benjamin says. "African-Americans' introduction into this culture came by stowage on a ship in very compromising ways. There was a decision by the highest court of the land that they had no rights to be respected. Yet they had the strength of character to find freedom and achieve it in a struggle that might be commended."

Benjamin says that using material from his rare collection of first-edition materials, rather than from later reprints that might have been altered or reinterpreted, adds authenticity to his discussion. "Rather than taking a third or fourth edition or a reprint, I take the very diagram, as it was published in 1792, with the fold-out of the plan for how Africans should be stowed to maximize space and profit in the slave trade. The idea is to take these materials, with their earliest appearance, and present them today."

A self-employed trial lawyer in Philadelphia, Benjamin was the 1996-97 president of the Barristers Association of Philadelphia, Inc., an organization of more than 1,000 African-American attorneys in the Philadelphia area. He is also a member of the board of the Pennsylvania Historical Society. He earned his juris doctorate in 1976 and his MBA in 1978, both from the University of Pittsburgh.