Cape Verdean Recognition Week Author Presentation

Monday, June 27, 2016 from 7:00 – 8:00PM
Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room
This event is free and open to the public.

Please join us at the New Bedford Public Library on Monday, June 27, 2016 from 7:00-8:00PM for an author presentation from Joseph F. Souza, Jr., Ph.D. and Dawn Blake Souza in honor of Cape Verdean Recognition Week.

Dr. Joseph F. Souza was born in São Nicolau, Cape Verde Islands, and raised in Lisbon, Portugal and New Bedford, Massachusetts. After graduating from Worcester State College, he became an officer in the United States Air Force and traveled extensively. He also served six years in the United States Marines before transferring to the Air Force. During his twenty-eight year military career, Dr. Souza lived a total of 12 years in Spanish speaking countries, and lived for 17 years in Lisbon, Portugal after his retirement. He has worked at the Inter-American Air Forces Academy, the Air Command and Staff College, the Air Force Foreign Officers School, the Portuguese Air Force Academy, the Portuguese National Defense Institute, and the NATO Defense College in Rome.

Dr. Souza is a well-known fine artist whose paintings and portraits can be found all over the Greater New Bedford area. He is a past board member of North Star Learning Centers and the New Bedford Historical Society, and is a current board member and fourteen-year volunteer at the FT. Taber/Ft. Rodman Military Museum. His first memoir, entitled, Once an Islander, was published in 2013.

Dawn is a veteran educator, most of her teaching and administrative experience has been spent serving a wide range of student populations, which have included those living in inner-city, predominantly-Latino neighborhoods, rural migrant farming communities; small, isolated Native-American tribal communities, as well as affluent suburban students. In addition, she has taught adult English-language learners.

Ms. Blake Souza has been an elementary school principal, an assistant high school principal, a district-wide English Acquisition Director, an elementary and high school English teacher.

For many years, Dawn has been a guest lecturer on Wampanoag History and Culture and has a special interest in Native-American and African American History. She has published two autobiographical books, In Search of Chestnuts and The Joy of My Journey, and writes and publishes poetry. Dawn has been a lifelong social justice and educational equity advocate.