George Curry, a leading journalist and media personality, will give the Martin Luther King Jr. Lecture at 11 a.m. April 3 in Graham Chapel. At 4 p.m. the following day in the Steinberg Hall Auditorium, George Bass, widely regarded as the founder of nautical archaeology, will give the John and Penelope Biggs Residency in the Classics lecture.

George Curry

Curry is editor in chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service (NNPA) and BlackPressUSA.com. His weekly national affairs column is syndicated by the NNPA to more than 200 African-American newspapers with a combined readership of 15 million.

Before joining the NNPA, Curry was editor in chief of Emerge: Black America's News Magazine from 1993-2000. He is immediate past president of the American Society of Magazine Editors, the first African-American and non-New York-based editor to hold the association's top office.

Curry is a frequent panelist on Lead Story, a news analysis program seen each Sunday on BET (Black Entertainment Television). Before becoming editor of Emerge, he served as New York bureau chief and as a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

Prior to joining the Tribune in 1983, Curry worked for 11 years as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and for two years as a reporter for Sports Illustrated.

He is the author of Jake Gaither: America's Most Famous Black Coach, editor of The Affirmative Action Debate and editor of The Best of Emerge, to be published this year by Ballantine Books.

Curry is the winner of numerous awards, including the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism presented by the University of Missouri. He is a trustee of Knoxville College, his alma mater; the Kemba N. Smith Foundation; St. Paul Saturdays, a leadership training program for young African-American males in St. Louis, and Young D.C., a regional teen-produced newspaper.

George Bass

Bass is the George T. and Gladys H. Abell Chair in Nautical Archaeology at Texas A&M University.

In more than 30 years of research and teaching, Bass has excavated a number of shipwreck sites ranging from the Bronze Age through the 11th century. Most of his work has been in the Mediterranean Sea, but he has also conducted underwater research in other areas including the Caribbean Sea and the waters of Virginia and Maine.

As a classical archaeologist, his research has also included many terrestrial projects and has directed or assisted in prehistoric excavations in Greece, Turkey and Italy.

As founder of the Institute for Nautical Archaeology (INA), Bass has pioneered important advances in his field, including developments for underwater stereo mapping and the process for underwater decompression.

Bass is a past president of the INA and currently its archaeological director. He retired from teaching at Texas A&M University in December 2000 but continues as professor emeritus and participates in the activities of the Nautical Archaeology Program.