Maria Gitin, Civil Rights Veteran, Activist and Author

Book talk and signing by Maria Gitin, author of This Bright Light of Ours: Stories from the Voting Rights Fight.

In 1965, as a college freshman, Maria Gitin answered Martin Luther King, Jr.'s call for students to come to the South after the attack on voting rights marchers in Selma on Bloody Sunday.  She has continued to fight for racial justice and to register voters in diverse communities for more than four decades. Gitin is a current member of Bay Area Civil Rights Veterans, Temple Beth El, and the NAACP. She holds a B.A., from Antioch University (1979) and did undergrad work at San Francisco State College (1964-1967). For twenty-eight years, she was principal of Maria Gitin & Associates development consulting group. Gitin is a frequent presenter on cultural competency and voting rights, and has received numerous racial justice awards and commendations including from the YWCA, NAACP, State of California Assembly, Alabama House of Representatives, and US Congressman Sam Farr.

"Gitin provides one of the most nuanced treatments of white involvement in the movement that I have read. She avoids many of the pitfalls that typically mar works treating the subject, most notably devaluing the role of outside organizers while simultaneously overstating the contributions they made."--Hasan Kwame Jeffries, author of "Bloody Lowndes: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama’s Black Belt".