RRUUC’s contemporary issues forum, Coffee, Controversy & Conversation (CC&C) has been informing our members and guests for the past 35 years with over 30 programs per season. The weekly programs often focus on social justice issues, but also include an eclectic range of topics including foreign relations, U.S. security, state and federal government policy, art, history, nature and more. The weekly CC&C programs are held mid-Sep. through May at 10:25 – 11:10 am (between worship services.) This season is looking to be very diverse with many topical issues.

February 17

Exciting New Treatments of Diseases- Caution Recommended
Robert Hoover, M.D., Sc.D., National Cancer Institute

DES, a drug approved in the 1940’s by the FDA for prescription to pregnant women to prevent miscarriages (and later determined to be ineffective), was found in the late 1960’s to have caused cancerous cervical and vaginal tumors in daughters of women who had been prescribed DES. With the onset of highly experimental and minimally tested anti-cancer ‘cocktails’ are we facing hitherto unknown consequences?  Bob Hoover, head of Epidemiology at the National Cancer Institute of NIH, will discuss the pros and cons of increasingly administered experimental drug cocktails.

February 24

Thurgood Marshall: Path to Brown v. Board of Education
Spencer Crew, Robinson Prof., George Mason Univ.

Brown v. Board of Education (US S Ct 1954) was built on incrementally groundbreaking but little heralded civil rights cases in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. The NAACP’s Thurgood Marshall, the principal advocate for petitioners in Brown, devoted years to creating its groundwork. Spencer Crew, Robinson Prof. of History at George Mason Univ., former head of the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, OH and former Director of the Smithsonian Museum of American History, is writing a book about Marshall. He will discuss Marshall’s contributions to the legal strategy that resulted in Brown.