Brown Foundation 20th Anniversary & Brown v. Board of Education 54th Anniversary
7:00PM to 9:00 PM
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Ramada Inn Regency Ball Room, 6th and Jefferson, Topeka, KS
Dressy attire
$30 per person, reservations required by May 14, 2008

You are cordially invited to a gala celebrating and commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the Brown Foundation and the 54th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

Celebrity co-hosts include Richard Roundtree and Crystal Thornton. Roundtree received international fame as John Shaft in the feature film Shaft. He is the recipient of a NAACP Image Award and a Peabody for his documentary narration on the PBS project "The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow."  Thornton is an award-winning journalist and former 2002-2005 co-anchor for WGHP-TV news in North Carolina. Thornton is also the daughter and niece of Topeka natives, Carol Kay Nutter and Victoria Benson, whose mother was a plaintiff in the Brown case on their behalf.

Musical selections will be provided by the M.R. Tribute Band, featuring David Basse, and Oleta Adams. Basse, for the past twenty years, has been at the forefront of the music scene in the legendary jazz capital that is Kansas City. Adams runaway success began with her 1990 debut platinum selling album Circle of One and the impassioned hit single "Get Here" that became an unofficial anthem of the 1991 Gulf War.

The keynote speaker of the event is Theodore Shaw, noted for his work as Director-Counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He was lead counsel in a coalition representing African American and Latino students in the University of Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admission case.

For more information or to make a reservation, please contact the Brown Foundation at (785) 235-3939 or by sending an email by clicking here.