In honor of the late Seton Hall History Professor Edwin R. Lewinson-a groundbreaking scholar-activist in civil, disability, and labor rights-the College of Arts and Sciences at Seton Hall has announced the foundation of the Edwin R. Lewinson Center for the Study of Labor, Inequality, and Social Justice. Endowed posthumously by Professor Lewinson, the center will bring to Seton Hall speakers, events, research, and scholarship that further develop and pay homage to Lewinson’s 30-plus years as a professor in the department of history and 50-plus years as a civil rights activist. Professor Lewinson died in 2012 at the age of 82.
The goal of the Lewinson Center is to advance understandings of labor, inequality, and social justice by engaging with topics in labor studies, social justice, and critical matters like the quest for economic security and social and legal equality among all peoples.
“The Lewinson Center will bring together faculty, students, and policymakers to address the most critical issues facing working people today: issues of class, race, gender, access, law, and economic policy all intersect at the paycheck, or the lack of one, and in the conditions of the workplace,” said Center Director and Associate Professor of Sociology Leslie Bunnage. “Both the history and future of the world of work encompasses real issues in real people’s lives. The Center will help bring these issues to the forefront on campus and throughout the community at large, where they belong.”
The Lewinson Center will focus its activities in three main directions: support of scholarship, curriculum development, and public outreach, often in the form of notable speakers. The center brings a wide array of scholars to its board and will take a multidisciplinary approach to questions of systemic economic inequality, equal access, and social justice. In doing so, the center follows in the footsteps of its namesake.
“Edwin R. Lewinson was born to blindness but saw injustice clearly and did something about it,” said Larry Greene, a professor of history at Seton Hall and a friend and colleague to Dr. Lewinson. “In addition to his work as a scholar, he was a pioneer in civil rights activism and was arrested during a sit-in to desegregate the Greyhound Bus Terminal in Washington, D.C. – in 1949. By November of 1964 he had been arrested five times, engaging in protests against discriminatory hiring practices, the 1963 March on Washington, the 1964 World’s Fair sit-in, and almost anywhere else you can think of where people were fighting for fairness. He and his seeing eye dog were a constant presence in the struggle for equality, workers’ rights and the rights of the disabled over a span of five decades, ” Professor Greene continued, “Ed Lewinson was a great American, an honor to Seton Hall and, on a personal level, a great friend. At the Edwin R. Lewinson Center we will do our best to honor his legacy and continue his important work.”
