Media Advisory

James Hildreth, an associate professor of pharmacology and molecular science at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, will describe how he went from growing up poor and black in rural Arkansas to going to Harvard and Oxford and becoming a doctor, as part of the "Voyage and Discovery" lecture series. His talk, entitled, "Baits of Falsehood, Carps of Truth: A Carpenter's Journey of Discovery" is scheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002 at 7:30 p.m. on the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins, 3400 N. Charles Street. It is free and open to the public.

Hildreth has said that he grew angry when, at age 11, he watched his father die of cancer and determined that he would get into Harvard in order to get to medical school. "My first struggle was getting out of rural Arkansas to get into medical school," Hildreth wrote recently. "The next struggle was adjusting and surviving Harvard; others include surviving Oxford, England, at a time when racial tensions were high."

The Voyage and Discovery lecture series is run by undergraduates at Johns Hopkins and aims to get to the story behind the research of Hopkins doctors, researchers and scientists. Hildreth is the second speaker in the 2002 series.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2002

WHERE: Mudd Hall Auditorium, the Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles Street