Bluffton University's first spring-semester forum features Tobin Miller Shearer, who will address "Prayer, Guns and the Civil Rights Movement: Disrupting the Grassroots/Elite Leadership Debate" at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 11, in Yoder Recital Hall. The forum is free and open to the public.

Shearer is an assistant professor of history and coordinator of African-American studies at the University of Montana. He has written extensively on race, religion and white privilege, with his most recent book, "Daily Demonstrators: The Civil Rights Movement in Mennonite Homes and Sanctuaries," published in 2010.

He helped found and co-directed what became known as Damascus Road, a national anti-racism training collective that is active in the Mennonite community.

In 2005, Bluffton students started the first student Damascus Road team among the Mennonite colleges. That same year, the group presented a session on organizing student teams on campuses.