Hume honoured by American university

Former SDLP leader John Hume has received another academic honour, an American university announced today.

The 1998 Nobel Peace Prize winner has been named Distinguished Visiting Professor of Global Leadership at the University of Missouri in Columbia.

The Foyle MP is currently on an academic tour of the US and is delivering a lecture on ‘The Theory and Practice of Peacemaking’ at the University of Missouri marking Martin Luther King Day.

The Reverend King was an inspiration for Mr Hume during the Catholic civil rights era in Northern Ireland with a central message of peaceful protest and non-violence.

Mr Hume is in the US with his wife Pat and Dr Kate O’Dubhchair of the University of Ulster’s Cross-Border Centre for Peace Building.

Mrs Hume was honoured by 150 guests at a banquet in the university’s European Union Centre with a donation to the Northern Ireland Memorial Fund while her husband received EU Centre Person of the Year.

The Humes are due to travel on to Regis University in Denver and the University of Nevada-Reno where the Foyle MP will receive honorary doctorates in recognition of his efforts to achieve peace in Northern Ireland.