SEMINAR AT B-CC TO FOCUS ON FLORIDA'S LEGAL SYSTEM BEFORE AND AFTER SEGREGATION

DAYTONA BEACH, FLA – A free seminar charting Florida’s Legal System before and after the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ended racial segregation in America and sparked the Civil Rights era will be held Thursday, January 15, 2004 at 7 p.m. in Heyn  Memorial Chapel on the Bethune-Cookman College campus. The public is invited.

Sponsored by the Florida Humanities Council, the program will be moderated by local historian and journalist Bill Schumann, and will feature Daytona Beach Attorney Dan Warren, who served as Florida’s State Attorney when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested in 1964 demonstrating in St. Augustine. Warren was also a personal friend of College founder Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune.

Warren attempted to mediate a solution when King was arrested trying to protest the Mayor of the City of St. Augustine’s refusal to appoint African-Americans to the committee planning the city’s 400^th anniversary celebration, despite the request of the NAACP.  Warren suggested that a grand jury be appointed to hear Dr. King's testimony. The grand jury recommended that a biracial committee be appointed to resolve the dispute, but St. Augustine officials would not compromise.

Bethune-Cookman is a comprehensive college, which offers degrees in liberal arts as well as professional fields, such as business, education and nursing. A United Methodist Church-affiliated school, the college has a diverse and international student population of more than 2,500 and a solid reputation for academic excellence. As evidence of its outstanding program, the College has been listed in the Templeton Honor Roll of Character Building Colleges and Universities, and it was ranked by Black Enterprise magazine as one of the “Top 50” schools in the nation for black students.

For more information, contact our website www.bethune.cookman.edu. 

-30-
back