Two UNC Asheville student organizations will host a talk on “The Struggle for Peace and Justice” by School of the Americas Watch founder Father Roy Bourgeois at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26, at UNC Asheville’s Highsmith University Union Alumni Hall. The event is free and open to the public.

Father Bourgeois is an American priest in the Maryknoll Order of the Roman Catholic Church and founder of the prominent human rights organization School of the Americas Watch. A native of Louisiana, Bourgeois entered seminary after a tour of duty in Vietnam. He was ordained in 1972 and sent to Bolivia to work with the poor. He spent five years there before being arrested and deported for speaking out against Bolivian dictator General Hugo Banzer, a School of the Americas graduate. In 1990, Bourgeois founded the School of the Americas Watch, an organization that seeks to close the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) through nonviolent protest. He is the recipient of the Pax Christi USA Pope Paul VI Teacher of Peace Award, Thomas Merton Award and a Purple Heart.

Bourgeois’ talk is sponsored by the UNC Asheville Chapter of Amnesty International and the UNC Asheville Socialist Unity League.

For more information, contact Mark Gibney, UNC Asheville Belk Distinguished Professor, at 828/250-3870 or mgibney@unca.edu.