Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The 15th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day Unity Breakfast takes place in two weeks at Mississippi State.
Sponsored by the President and the Office of Diversity and Equity Programs, the Jan. 19 public program begins with serving at 7:15 a.m. in the Bill Foster Ballroom of the university's Colvard Student Union.
Attorney Constance Slaughter-Harvey will deliver the keynote address. Special presentations also will be made by new MSU President Mark Keenum and Starkville Mayor Dan Camp.
A Forest native and current resident, Slaughter-Harvey became, in 1970, the first African-American female graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law. In 1998, Ole Miss' Black Law Student Association was named in her honor.
After working in civil rights law for several years, she joined the staff of Gov. William Winter in 1980 as director of human development. Four years later, she became assistant secretary of state for elections and public lands. She subsequently became the office's general counsel, while continuing as assistant secretary of elections.
Leaving government in 1995, Slaughter-Harvey served as coordinator of the Mississippi Democratic Party. She then returned to private law practice and became president of Elections Inc., a position she continues to hold in addition to leading the Slaughter Memorial Foundation.
Slaughter-Harvey, also a Tougaloo College graduate, is past president of the Magnolia Bar Association and a 1999 Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation, among numerous career honors.
For additional information, contact Mary L. Alexander, DEP's director, at 662-325-2493 or mla2@pres.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.