Juan Gonzalez, an activist, author and award-winning columnist with the New York Daily News, will be lecturing on "Civil Rights and Latinos" at Wayne State University on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 1:30-3 p.m. in the Bernath Auditorium of the David Adamany Undergraduate Library.

Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, Gonzalez grew up in a New York City housing project and studied at Columbia University where he became involved in the 1968 student strike. A founding member of the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican activist group, Gonzalez later served as president of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights. Along with his daily newspaper column, he writes regularly for the magazine "In These Times" and has been a co-host on Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now."

Gonzalez is the author of "Roll Down Your Window: Stories from a Forgotten America" and "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America." He was named one of the nation's 100 most influential Hispanics by "Hispanic Business" and has received a lifetime achievement award from the Hispanic Academy of Media Arts and Sciences.

Sponsored by Wayne State's Center for Chicano-Boricua Studies, in the College of Urban, Labor and Metropolitan Affairs (CULMA); the Wayne State University Library System; and Madonna University, the lecture is free and open to the general public.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.