Contact: Kristin Anderson, University Relations, (517) 353-8819, ander284@msu.edu
1/16/04
A media availability with Constance Iona Slaughter-Harvey, Michigan State University�s Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote speaker, will be held at 5 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19, at the Multicultural Center in the MSU Union.
She will join members of the MSU and Greater Lansing communities in the 6 p.m. commemorative march from Beaumont Tower to the Wharton Center for the Performing Arts, where she will present the keynote address at 7 p.m.
Slaughter-Harvey, a foot soldier in the civil rights movement, is the first black woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi Law School. After graduation she joined the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and later served as the executive director of the Southern Legal Rights and as director of the East Mississippi Legal Services. She is the first black woman to serve as a judge in Mississippi.
As an attorney she successfully argued the case Morrow v. Crisler that led to the desegregation of the Mississippi Highway Patrol, and defended the families of Philip Gibbs and James Earl Green, students killed during civil rights demonstrations at Jackson State University. She was one of the original attorneys in the Jake. v. State of Mississippi lawsuit in 1976 to provide equal funding to the state�s historically black colleges.
In 1987 she was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the Presidential Scholars Commission. Today she owns her own law firm and specializes in civil rights cases.
[Media Note: Constance Iona Slaughter-Harvey, MSU�s keynote speaker for the 24th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration, will be available to speak with media from 5 to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 19, in the Heritage Room of the Multicultural Center in the MSU Union. For more information, contact Kristin K. Anderson, University Relations, (517) 353-8819 or ander284@msu.edu.]