Coastal Carolina University will host its 13th annual Constitution Day lecture on Friday, Sept. 16, at 5 p.m. in the Edwards Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public.

Marvin Overby, politics professor at the University of Missouri, will speak on the topic "Great Migration and the Making of Modern America." He will discuss the migration of people out of the rural South into the urban North during the first part of the 20th century. Overby will describe how this migration had tremendous impacts on both regions and created political pressure that forced national leaders to confront racial issues in the South, which ties in perfectly with the celebration of Constitution Day.

Overby earned a Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma. He has served as the Laszlo Orzagh Fulbright Distinguished Lecturer at the University of Szeged in Hungary, as well as a visiting professor at the Vesalius College in Brussels. Overby teaches courses in American government, politics of the American South and democracy in America. His research ranges from comparative legislative analysis to state legislative organization as well as representation of committees.

Constitution Day 2016 will be celebrated nationwide this year on Sept. 16 to commemorate the signing of the Constitution in September 1787.

The Recital Hall is in room 152 in the Thomas W. and Robin W. Edwards College of Humanities and Fine Arts, located at 133 Chanticleer Drive E. on the Conway campus. For more information, contact Frederick Wood, associate professor of politics, at 843-349-6594, or email fwood@coastal.edu.