Echoing the spirit of MLK
On the far wall of Levi Watkins' cramped office in Blalock Hall there is a painted montage. The images that leap out are of Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, both key figures in the civil rights movement. Also in the painting are the images of the Montgomery State House, presided over by then governor George Wallace; a station wagon, representing the vehicles that the black community used to transport its members during the bus boycott; and the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, which Watkins attended and where he first met King. The most prominent figures in the painting are of Watkins himself and the familiar Hopkins Hospital dome.
   Watkins, associate dean for postdoctoral programs and professor of cardiac surgery at the School of Medicine, views the montage as a window to both his past and his present. Having grown up in Montgomery, Ala., during the height of civil unrest in this country, he recalls the days he drove a station wagon like the one depicted in the painting, and he remembers the time in his life when he "got [my] butt kicked" and friends had their houses bombed just because of the color of their skin. The Hopkins dome reminds him of how far he's come in his career and how much progress has been made in the war against racism and prejudice. Full story...

Outlook: Hanke on the world economy in 1999
Steven H. Hanke, professor of applied economics in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and in the Department of Economics, gives his views on the U.S. and world economies and what we might face as we approach the year 2000. Full story...

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