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Thank You, 72 – Joseph Sullivan and Gillian Laub

Seeking truth, exposing injustice, sparking change. In this podcast, the stories of two UW-Madison alumni who used very different talents and skills to confront longstanding issues involving race and inequality.

First, thank you, Iron County for Joseph Sullivan. He grew up in Hurley and was a former Badger football standout. Sullivan graduated in 1938, and joined the FBI. He played a key role in many major investigations, including the 1964 murders of three civil rights workers in Mississippi. Novelist Tom Clancy called him “the greatest lawman America ever produced.”

Then, the story of 1997 grad Gillian Laub. Her photographs of a segregated prom in Montgomery County, Georgia, published in the New York Times Magazine, lead to a national outcry for change in 2009. Laub later returned to Georgia to produce a documentary about changes in the community. However, the documentary took a dramatic turn when a young black man is shot by an older white man.

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