February 7, 2003: Headlines: COS - Turkey: Civil Rights: NAACP: LDF President and Turkey RPCV Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Turkey: Special Report: Turkey RPCV and Civil Rights Activist Elaine Jones: February 7, 2003: Headlines: COS - Turkey: Civil Rights: NAACP: LDF President and Turkey RPCV Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

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LDF President and Turkey RPCV Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

LDF President and Turkey RPCV Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

LDF President and Turkey RPCV Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

LDF President Elaine R. Jones To Receive Black Leadership Forum Honor

(Washington, DC, February 7, 2003) NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) President and Director-Counsel Elaine R. Jones has been named the 2003 recipient of the Black Leadership Forum's Lamplighter Award for Equity and Justice. The award will be presented February 11 at the organization's 7th Annual Lamplighter Awards Dinner Gala in Washington, D.C.

"I am delighted to be receiving this honor from the Black Leadership Forum," Ms. Jones stated. "It reflects LDF's ongoing commitment to ensuring that all Americans benefit from the democratic ideals upon which this nation was founded."

Thurgood Marshall, who went on to become the first African-American Supreme Court Justice, founded LDF in 1940. It has been involved in a broad range of groundbreaking litigation. Its most prominent case is Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended legally sanctioned segregation in public schools.

LDF is currently representing African-American and Latino student intervenors in a challenge to the University of Michigan's consideration of race in undergraduate admissions. This closely watched affirmative action case is considered one of the most significant civil rights cases to come before the Supreme Court in 25 years.

When Elaine R. Jones took the helm of the Legal Defense Fund in 1993, she became the first woman to head the organization. Her trail blazing career is peppered with numerous "firsts." After graduating with honors in political science from Howard University, she entered the Peace Corps and became one of the first African Americans to serve in Turkey. Following her two-year Peace Corps stint, she became the first black woman to graduate from the University of Virginia School of Law.

In her early years at LDF, Ms. Jones became one of the first African-American women to defend death row inmates, arguing capital cases throughout the South in the face of harassment by the Ku Klux Klan and bias in the legal system. Only two years out of law school, she was counsel of record in Furman v. Georgia, a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that abolished the death penalty in 37 states for 12 years.

Ms. Jones left LDF briefly to serve as special assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation William T. Coleman, Jr. (who is co-chair emeritus of LDF's board of directors). When she returned to LDF, she originated the position of legislative advocate in LDF's Washington, D.C. office. In that capacity, she played a key role in securing passage of legislative milestones such as the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1982, the Fair Housing Act of 1988, the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 and the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

Ms. Jones' leadership in the struggle for equality has earned her numerous awards and honors. She is the first African American to serve on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association. She is included among Ebony magazine's 10 Most Powerful Black Women and 100+ Most Influential Black Americans for the year 2001. Other honors include the National Newspaper Publishers Association's 2001 National Public Service Award and People for the American Way's 2001 Democracy Award. In December 2000, President William Jefferson Clinton presented her with the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award.

The Black Leadership Forum was established in 1977 to promote a creative and coordinated black leadership that would empower African Americans to improve their own lives and to expand their opportunities to fully participate in American social, economic and political life. The organization monitors the political process and provides research and other support to member organizations.




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Story Source: NAACP

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Turkey; Civil Rights

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