Athens, Ga. – Donna Brazile, vice chair of voter registration and participation for the Democratic National Committee and former chair of the committee’s Voting Rights Institute, will deliver the 14th annual Mary Frances Early Lecture April 3 at 4 p.m. in the Grand Hall of Tate Student Center on the University of Georgia campus.
Brazile worked on every Democratic presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she served as campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.
Brazile is the author of the best-selling memoir “Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics.” She is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, a syndicated newspaper columnist for Universal Uclick, a columnist for Ms. Magazine, and an on-air contributor to CNN, NPR and ABC, where she regularly appears on “This Week.”
In August 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine chose Brazile as one of its “20 Remarkable Visionaries” for the magazine’s first-ever O Power List. Washington magazine named her among the “100 Most Powerful Women,” Essence Magazine called her one of the “Top 50 Women in America,” and she received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement.
The annual lecture honors Mary Frances Early, the first African-American to earn a degree from UGA, and her legacy at the university. Early graduated with a master’s degree in music education in 1962 and completed her specialist in education degree in 1967. The lecture recognizes Early’s dedication toward making UGA an institution of higher learning for all people. The lecture series strives to demonstrate the progress that has been made in achieving her vision as well as to identify the work that remains to be done.
The Mary Frances Early Lecture is sponsored by the Graduate School, Graduate and Professional Scholars and the Office of Institutional Diversity.
The event is free and open to the public. For more information on the Mary Frances Early Lecture, see grad.uga.edu.