A recent edition of the  “MTSU On the Record” radio program featured a visiting lecturer and expert on civil rights and racial history.

Dr. Thomas J. Sugrue

Host Gina Logue’s interview with Dr. Thomas J. Sugrue, this year’s 2013 Strickland Visiting Scholar Lecturer, first aired Sept. 16 on WMOT-FM (89.5 and www.wmot.org ). You can listen to their conversation here.

Sugrue is scheduled to speak on “Race, Inequality and Diversity in Obama’s America” at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, in the State Farm Lecture Hall of MTSU’s Business and Aerospace Building.

A specialist in 20th century American politics and urban history, Sugrue is the David Boies Professor of History and Sociology and director of the Penn Social Science and Policy Forum at the University of Pennsylvania. His most recent book is “Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race.”

“I think the perception of Obama, the reading of his comments on race one way or another, are the projections of people’s hopes that Obama is really a civil rights activist dressed as a president or fears that somehow Barack Obama is a polarizing figure who’s going to play on and exacerbate deep-rooted divisions and divides in America,” said Sugrue.

The Strickland Visiting Scholar program allows students to meet with renowned scholars whose expertise spans a variety of historical issues. The Strickland family established the program in memory of Dr. Roscoe Lee Strickland Jr., a longtime professor of European history at MTSU and the first president of the university’s Faculty Senate.

To listen to previous “MTSU On the Record” programs, go to the “Audio Clips” archives here and here.

For more information about “MTSU On the Record,” contact Logue at 615-898-5081 or WMOT-FM at 615-898-2800.