Kweisi Mfume, the former president and CEO of the national NAACP, will be the featured speaker for UCA’s month-long celebration of Black History Month.
The address will take place on Thursday, Feb. 7th at 7 p.m. at the Donald W. Reynolds Performance Hall on the UCA campus.
Mfume served on the Baltimore City Council before being elected to the U.S. House of Representative in 1986. As a member of Congress, Mfume consistently advocated landmark business and civil rights legislation, and he successfully co-sponsored and helped to pass the Americans with Disabilities Act and strengthened the Equal Credit Opportunity Law. He also served as chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
In 1996, Mfume became president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, and for the next nine years, he significantly raised the national profile of the NAACP while helping to restore its prominence among the nation’s civil rights organizations. Mfume is credited with helping to raise over $100 million in outside contributions for the organization while at the same time developing its national Corporate Diversity Project and establishing 75 new college based NAACP chapters. His five point program of advocacy included civil rights enforcement, educational excellence, economic empowerment, health advocacy and youth outreach. In 2006, he was a candidate for the United States Senate from the State of Maryland.
Mfume received his undergraduate degree from Morgan State University and a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University. He also has received ten honorary doctorate degrees and hundreds of other awards, proclamations and citations. His former best-selling autobiography is entitled “No Free Ride.”