Retired Law Professor, MLK Colleague Charles Jones, J.D., Selected to be Keynote Speaker at 2013 MLK Celebration Breakfast

Posted by: admin on October 22, 2012, No Comments

East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania announced today that Professor Charles Jones, J.D., retired professor of law from Rutgers University, will be the keynote speaker for the 2013 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Celebration Breakfast. The breakfast, ESU’s sixteenth annual celebration honoring Dr. King, is scheduled for Monday, January 21, 2013, at 8 a.m. in the Keystone Room in the university’s Center for Hospitality Management. The event is open to the general public.

Professor Jones will share his experiences of working with Dr. King on voter registration cases in Alabama while an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1965-66. During this time Jones also tried federal civil rights cases and argued appeals in the areas of school desegregation, housing segregation, voting rights and demonstrations, public housing and equalization of municipal services.

Raised in Chicago, Jones earned his juris doctorate from the University of Illinois and a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard. He was also a graduate of, and a teaching fellow for, the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Jones joined the Rutgers law faculty in 1970, teaching courses in criminal law, criminal procedure, civil rights, civil liberties, legal representation of the poor, corrections law and constitutional law.  He also directed seminars on law and political behavior, criminal justice and racial violence, hate speech and crime and race law theory and he co-directed the Rutgers University prison law clinic.

Jones is a member of the bar association in Illinois and New Jersey, the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Courts of Appeals of the Fifth and Seventh Circuits and Federal District Courts in the Northern District of Illinois, the Southern District of Alabama and the District of Massachusetts.

His research and writing have focused on free speech and hate crime.  Now retired, Jones continues to write on various subjects.

Reserve a Space Today

Reservations are now being taken for the breakfast at a cost of $30 per person and $8 for ESU students, with proceeds to benefit the Gertrude Mary Smith Boddie Scholarship Fund. The Boddie Fund provides financial assistance to undergraduate students of color at ESU. In 1904 Ms. Boddie was the first African-American student to graduate from what was then known as East Stroudsburg State Normal School and ultimately became East Stroudsburg University in 1983.

As a result of the breakfast, two Boddie Scholarship awardees will each receive a $2950 scholarship award for the Spring 2013 semester. Scholarship winners are selected based on their ability to demonstrate, through community service work or university involvement, a commitment to Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence, equality, justice, cultural diversity, and a respect for humanity.

Breakfast organizers are also asking regional business organizations to consider becoming a sponsor of this community event. For more information visit www.esufoundation.org/mlksponsorship or contact Angela Beers at 570-422-3179 or abeers@esufoundation.org no later than December 3, 2012.

Seeking Nominations for MLK Awards

Nominations are being accepted for the 2013 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awards, which will be presented at the Celebration Breakfast.  Nominees for the awards should exemplify two or more aspects of Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence, equality, justice, cultural diversity, and respect for humanity.

Two awards will be presented: one to a member of the ESU community and one to a member of the community at large. ESU candidates must be currently employed by the university as a faculty member, staff member, administrator, and/or must be currently enrolled as a student for at least two full-time semesters with a minimum grade point average of 2.5. Candidates from the community must be current residents who are active in the local community. All nominations must include a short biography of the candidate and three letters of recommendation.  Nomination forms are available online at www.esu.edu/mlk, or by visiting The Pocono Record (511 Lenox Street, Stroudsburg, Pa.) or ESU’s Henry A. Alumni Center (Smith Street, East Stroudsburg, Pa.). The deadline for submissions is December 7, 2012.

For more information about the Celebration Breakfast or for special accommodations, contact Cornelia Sewell-Allen, coordinator for multicultural affairs, at (570) 422-3896 or email at csewell@esu.edu.