Lecture focuses on racial disparity in wealth

Melvin Oliver, vice president of the Asset Building and Community Development Program for The Ford Foundation, will lecture on wealth disparity between the races Wednesday, Feb. 17 as part of UW–Madison’s University Lecture Series. The event is co-sponsored by the North American Program of the Land Tenure Center.

Oliver’s lecture, “Not Born on Third Base: Black/White Wealth Inequality in Historical and Contemporary Perspective,” will be held at the State Historical Society Auditorium, 816 State St., at 7 p.m. A public reception will be held at 8:30 p.m. at the Multicultural Center, 2nd floor, Red Gym, 716 Langdon St.

Oliver will discuss the topic of his award winning book, “Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality,” written with Thomas M. Shapiro. The book won the 1995 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the 1997 Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award from the American Sociological Association.

From 1978 to 1996, Oliver was a member of the faculty at UCLA, teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels.