The Columbia County NAACP will host its annual Freedom Fund Banquet on Saturday, January 17, 2015, at 6 p.m. at the Grand Hall of the Donald W. Reynolds Center Campus and Community Center.
The public is invited, and tickets are $30 each. The theme this year is “In Our Beloved Community, All Persons Count.” For tickets, contact Claudell Woods at 870-234-0300 or Carol Garland at 870-234-3700.
The keynote speaker will be Dr. Adjoa A. Aiyetoro, associated professor of law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. She is the director of Racial Disparities in the Arkansas Criminal Justice System Research Project. Aiyetoro has had a career as a human rights attorney and social worker.
As an attorney for the United States Department of Justice, she litigated cases involving the rights of the institutionalized and prisoners. She then worked for the ACLU National Prison Project. She has actively worked with the National Conference of Black Lawyers, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights Under Law, United Nations Beijing Conference on Women, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, World Conference Against Racism, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America and the Harold Flowers Law Society.
In March 2014, Aiyetoro received the Washington University George Warren Brown School of Social Work’s distinguished Alumni Award. In April 2014, she received the Arkansas ACLU’s Civil Libertarian of the Year Award. Since then, Aiyetoro has worked alongside with the W. Harold Flowers Law Society and the Arkansas ACLU to lead Truthful Tuesdays, a weekly rally on Tuesdays at the Arkansas State Capitol steps that addresses a particular topic of interest.
