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Wiley Branton Awardees

Be sure and join us for this year's celebration!

EAST COAST AWARDEE
October 10, 2014 | Register Today!

Judge Arthur L. Burnett, Sr. (Retired) is the National Executive Director, National African American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc. He is a graduate from Howard University summa cum laude with a major in political science and minor in economics. He then attended New York University School of Law in a six-year college-law combination program, receiving his college degree in 1957 after finishing Howard University's four (4) years requirement by attending classes in the summers of 1956 and 1957, and receiving his law degree in June 1958 from New York University.

SOUTHERN AWARDEE
October 30 -31, 2014

Dr. Norman C. Francis
the longest-sitting university president in the U.S. (since 1968), has been at Xavier University of New Orleans for more than five decades as an administrator.

A 1948 graduate of St. Paul High School in Lafayette, Louisiana, Dr. Francis earned a B.S. at Xavier University in 1952. In 1955, Francis became the first black student to earn a J.D. from Loyola University of New Orleans School of Law, doing so with honors. Francis was inspired by the late New Orleans civil rights pioneer attorney Alexander Pierre “A.P.” Tureaud, his colleague and friend.

WEST COAST AWARDEE
October 17, 2014 | Register Today!

Connie Rice is a civil rights lawyer who engineers systemic fixes to entrenched inequality and injustice. California Law Business Journal twice designated her one of the top ten most influential attorneys in California. Through impact litigation, campaigns and inside bureaucratic maneuvering, she has led coalitions and clients to win more than $30 billion in damages, bonds and policy changes. Bus riders, death row inmates, folks abused by police, school kids, whistleblowers, cops and sufferers of every stripe of discrimination have sought her counsel.

MIDWEST AWARDEE
November 7, 2014

The Honorable Rodney E. Slater
rose from poverty to become an Arkansas assistant attorney general and served in several positions under Arkansas governor (and later U.S. president) Bill Clinton. He was chairman of the Arkansas Highway Commission, director of governmental affairs for Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, the first African-American director of the Federal Highway Administration, and U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Mr. Slater’s bipartisan and inclusive approach to problem solving has earned him tremendous respect and admiration on both sides of the aisle.