February 15, 2000
RELEASE ON RECEIPT

STEPHANIE TUBBS JONES & REV. HERBERT DAUGHTRY TO SPEAK AT OBERLIN COLLEGE

8 p.m.
Thurs., Feb. 24:

Stephanie Tubbs Jones: "Towards the New Millennium - Building A Community."

Finney Chapel
N. Professor and W. Lorain Sts.

7:30 p.m.
Fri., Feb. 25:

Rev. Herbert Daughtry: "The Importance of Christian Activism in the 21st Century"

Lord Lounge,
Afrikan Heritage House, 126 Forest St.

Free and open to the public

For more information, contact
Adenike Sharpley
440/775-8715

OBERLIN--Addresses by a pioneering jurist and by one of the leading U.S. activist ministers will highlight Oberlin College's observance of Black History Month. The events are free and open to the public.

The speakers are the Honorable Stephanie Tubbs Jones, Congress-woman from the 22nd district, Cleveland, and the first African-American woman to hold the position of Cuyahoga County prosecutor, and the Rev. Herbert Daughtry of Brooklyn, N.Y.; whose 40 years of involvement in community and church service have earned him the title of "The People's Pastor."

Tubbs Jones will discuss the topic "Towards the New Millennium‹ Building a Community" at 8 p.m. Thur., Feb. 24, in Finney Chapel, and Rev. Daughtry will speak on "The Importance of Christian Activism in the 21st Century" at 7:30 p.m. Fri., Feb. 25 in the College's Afrikan Heritage House.

Stephanie Tubbs Jones won 79 percent of the vote to replace Louis Stokes in the 11th congressional district of Ohio in 1998. Prior to becoming prosecutor in 1991, she spent a decade as a judge of Cleveland's Municipal Court and was the first African-American woman in Ohio appointed to the Cuyahoga Court of Common Pleas; she was elected to two terms in that office.

In 1994, Mrs. Jones was named Ohio Democrat of the Year and, in 1996, Black Professional of the Year . In 1997 she received the 1997 Distinguished Service Award from the Cleveland Chapter of the NAACP and was recognized by the Ohio Bar Association for her work in improving the status of women in the law.

In 1998 she received the Founder's Award from the National Association of Black Prosecutors. A graduate of Collinwood High School, she received the B.A. degree and law degree from Case Western Reserve University.

Active in the struggle for the integration of schools and for community control of schools in the late 1960s, Rev. Daughtry has been involved in protest actions in cooperation with the Brooklyn COW and Operation Breadbaskets. In 1977, he was a major force in the Coalition of Concerned Leaders and Citizens to Save Our Jobs, which used economic boycott to win jobs and services for Blacks from Brooklyn merchants.

He also is president of the African People's Christian Organization, which he initiated in 1982 to build an African Christian nation through emphasizing African and Biblical Christianity in the context of struggle and determination.

He served as special assistant to the Rev. Jesse Jackson during his 1984 presidential campaign and that same year visited the Vatican with Rev. Jackson and Catholic Bishop Emerson Moore to encourage the Pope to make a consistent stand on human rights.

His book No Monopoly on Suffering: Blacks and Jews in Crown Heights and Elsewhere chronicles the building of a movement in Brooklyn. Other publications include Inside the Storm: A Report on the Uprising in Crown Heights and A Seed Planted in Stone - The Life and Times of Tupac Shakur. The recording artist and actor, one of the most successful "gangsta" rappers, Shakur joined Rev. Daughtry's congregation at the age of 11. In 1996, he was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas; he was 25.

Rev. Daughtry is National Presiding Minister of the House of the Lord Churches, a member of the Black Leadership Commission on AIDS, and chairman emeritus of the National Black United Front. He also has served as co-chairman of the Ministers Against Narcotics and vice chairman of the Bedford Stuyvesant Youth in Action Board.

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Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli 2/14/00 # 40 bg