Release date: March 21, 2006
Contact: Beverly Cox Clark at 404-712-8780 or beverly.clark@emory.edu

Former New Orleans Mayor to Deliver Emory's Hamilton Lecture April 5

Marc Morial, president and CEO of the National Urban League and former mayor of New Orleans, will deliver the annual Grace Towns Hamilton Lecture at Emory University at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 5 in Cannon Chapel, 515 Kilgo Circle, Emory. Morial plans to discuss recovery efforts in New Orleans following Katrina. The event is free and open to the public.

Morial served as mayor of New Orleans from 1994-2002, and in the Louisiana State Senate from 1992-1994. During his two terms as mayor of New Orleans, Morial led a tourism boom for the city and effectively addressed its endemic crime problems.  Morial also emerged as a national leader, serving as president of the United States Conference of Mayors. His dual appointment as president and CEO of the National Urban League in 2003 followed.  Following the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina in fall 2005, Morial has traveled the country advocating for the rights of Katrina survivors.

The Grace Towns Hamilton lecture series, sponsored by the Department of African American Studies at Emory, honors the life and legacy of Grace Towns Hamilton. A native Atlantan, Hamilton in 1966 became the first African American woman elected to a state legislature in the South, and the first African American to be elected to the Georgia State Legislature since Reconstruction.

From 1943 to 1961, Hamilton also served as executive director of the Atlanta Urban League, the local affiliate of the National Urban League. Hamilton was one of the few women to hold such a post at that time.  Under her direction, the Atlanta Urban League increased African American voter registration, gained greater funding to black schools, and assisted in the creation of a new hospital in Atlanta for black people, and new housing for middle-income blacks.  Her success with the Atlanta Urban League led to her historic election to the Georgia State Legislature in 1966.

The lecture is free and open to the public.  For more information, contact Emory's Department of African American Studies at 404-727-6847; or email aas@emory.edu.

Emory University is known for its demanding academics, outstanding undergraduate college of arts and sciences, highly ranked professional schools and state-of-the-art research facilities. For nearly two decades Emory has been named one of the country's top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report. In addition to its nine schools, the university encompasses The Carter Center, Yerkes National Primate Research Center and Emory Healthcare, the state's largest and most comprehensive health care system.

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