Speaking Out for Civil Rights

GAMBIER, Ohio (November 28, 2005) Hilary O. Shelton, director of the Washington, D.C., bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), will speak at Kenyon on Tuesday, December 6, at 8:00 p.m. in the College's Rosse Hall Auditorium. Shelton will address the topic "Crisis: Ignorance, Bigotry, Hate, Discrimination. Speaking Out and Standing Up for Civil Rights."

As director of the NAACP Washington bureau, Shelton is responsible for advocating the federal public-policy issue agenda of the oldest, largest, and most widely recognized civil rights organization in the United States. Among the crucial topics in his portfolio are affirmative action, equal employment protection, access to quality education, gun-violence prevention, racial profiling, abolition of the death penalty, comprehensive healthcare, voting rights protection, and federal sentencing reform.

Prior to joining the NAACP, Shelton was the federal liaison and assistant director for the government affairs department of the United Negro College Fund, which seeks to secure the survival, growth, and excellence of the forty private historically black colleges and universities in the United States. Earlier in his career, he was the federal policy program director to the United Methodist Church's social-justice advocacy agency, the General Board of Church and Society.

Shelton serves on a number of national boards of directors, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Center for Democratic Renewal, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute. The recipient of the National NAACP Medgar W. Evers Award for Excellence and the Congressional Black Caucus' Chairman's Award, Shelton is widely recognized for his devotion to advancing the cause of civil rights for all Americans.

Shelton's talk at Kenyon is sponsored by the discrimination advisors, the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Department of Sociology, Unity House, Snowden Multicultural Center, the Roosevelt Institution, and the Office of the Provost. It is open to the public at no charge.