LEWISTON — South African human rights activist Justice Albert Sachs, a foe of apartheid and key player in overturning South Africa’s ban on gay marriage, will offer a talk at Bates College as part of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships’ Civic Forum Series at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Sachs’ talk is titled “Ubuntu: An African Contribution to the Universality of Human Rights.” Admission is open to the public free.

The event is co-sponsored by the Office of Intercultural Education; the Multifaith Chaplaincy; the departments of politics, African American studies, anthropology and sociology; the divisions of social sciences and humanities; the Program in Women and Gender Studies; and the Justice for Women Lecture Series of the University of Maine School of Law.

An African National Congress activist during the apartheid years in South Africa, Sachs went on to play an important role in the creation of the country’s first democratic constitution. He gained international attention again in 2005 as the author of the Constitutional Court’s holding that overturned South Africa’s ban on gay marriage.

Sachs has traveled all over the world to speak about human rights and how to achieve them in partitioned societies.

He has written several books, including “The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs” (Harvill Press, 1966), published during his time in exile in England but banned in his home country.

In 1991, Sachs won the Alan Paton Award for his book “Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter” (University of California Press). His most recent title is “The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law,” published by Oxford University Press in 2009.

For more information, call 786-6202.