Omar Ali, district leader for the New York Independence Party, will lecture on The Role of Independents in the 2004 Election at 12:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13, at Claremont McKenna College's Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. The lecture is free and open to the public, and seating is available on a first-come basis. The Athenaeum is located at 385 East Eighth Street, at the intersection of Eighth and Amherst Streets in Claremont.
Ali is one of the nation's leading scholars and spokespersons in the growing independent political movement. He is a doctoral fellow in history at Columbia University, an adjunct faculty member of the history department at Fordham University, and director of research at the Committee for a Unified Independent Party (CUIP), a national think-tank and strategy center for independent politics and election reform.
Ali is a contributing author to History in Dispute-Social and Political Movements, 1945-2000 and Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. His research on voting trends in American politics has been published in articles and essays in the United States and England.