Facing History Speaker, Former Slave, Featured on Tavis Smiley

Los Angeles and San Francisco, California -- As part of the Community Conversation series presented by Facing History and Ourselves and The Allstate Foundation, former child slave from Sudan and now human rights activist Francis Bok recently spoke to audiences throughout California, reaching over 3000 teachers, community members and students. The week of May 15th began with an interview on the Tavis Smiley show [1].

Bok spoke at community events at Lowell High School in the San Francisco Bay Area, and at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles, in addition to several school visits. He shared his experience of being captured at age 7 outside his Dinka village in Southern Sudan, and being held as a slave for 10 years until finally escaping at age 17, first to Khartoum and eventually to Cairo where he applied for and was granted UN refugee status. He arrived in the United States in 2000 without ever going to school and without any family in the U.S.

Today, Francis Bok works on behalf of the organization, the American Anti-Slavery Group, as an anti-slavery and human rights activist. He tells audiences, "Every night for ten years I cried myself to sleep wondering who was going to come rescue me. Now I speak for those who still cannot speak for themselves."

Bok's story is told in his autobiography, Escape from Slavery, which was a favorite among the scores of students who read it in preparation for his visit. At the San Francisco community event, Facing History students from five schools led the conversation with Bok in an interview-style format.

In Los Angeles, Bok also spoke to over 1000 students at Santa Monica High School, where all 850 freshmen take a yearlong Facing History course. The students in the club, Students Opposed to Suffering in Sudan, were so moved by hearing his story that they have decided to commit their future fundraising to help build a school in Bok's home region of Peth.

These series of events are one of many ways Facing History helps to promote thinking about what it means to participate responsibly as a citizen -- locally and globally.

Community Conversations is a national speaker series offered by Facing History and The Allstate Foundation that examines issues of civic responsibility.