Politics and the education of black adults will be among the topics at the second annual NIU Black Graduate Students Symposium this weekend.

The symposium, titled “The Black Experience: Bridging the Gap Between the Community and the University,” will be held Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31 at Malcom X College.

It is sponsored by the NIU Department of Leadership and Educational Policy Studies, the Adult Education Research Consortium and Malcolm X College.

The keynote speaker will be Cheryl Blackwell Bryson, an attorney with Rivkin, Radler and Kramer’s labor and employment practice group.

Among the topics that will be discussed are the education of black women in poverty, the education of black men in the criminal justice system and religion and black adult education.

NIU graduate students Derek Mulenga, who is from Zambia, Africa, and Ian Baptise, who is from the Caribbean, will be guest speakers.

Baptise will be discussing politics and education of black adults. “I want to recapture the classical meaning of politics. I think the modern notion of politics is a fairly recent one. It’s crude and utilitarian,” he said.

People have historically engaged in politics for private gain, he said. “Blacks need to recapture the higher ethical form of politics to survive.”

Students need to challenge the notion of politics and critique institutions that perpetuate it, he said.