Kweisi Mfume, a former NAACP president and congressman, will be the guest speaker Feb. 15 at a scholarship banquet hosted by an African-American employee group at PPL Corporation.
A high school dropout, Mfume overcame poverty and gang involvement to earn a master’s degree and be elected to Baltimore City Council and later to the U.S. Congress.
In 1996, he became president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, serving in those positions for nine years.
“Kweisi is a real-life example of how education can make a difference in a young person’s life,” said Alvie Fennell, a senior business systems analyst with PPL and president of the company’s African-American Business Resource Group.
“Education has always been one of the cornerstones of AABRG, and this banquet will help minority students in Pennsylvania to go to college,” he said.
The event, which is open to the public, will start at 7 p.m. at the Wood Dining Room in Iacocca Hall at Lehigh University’s Mountaintop campus, Bethlehem. Mfume will discuss community investment, community involvement and diversity.
Born in Baltimore, Mfume dropped out of school at age 16 to support his three younger sisters after his mother died. He began running with gangs and became a teenage parent with few skills.
At age 22, he studied for and passed his general equivalency development test. With his GED, he enrolled in community college and went on to attend Morgan State University. He later earned a master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.
He won a seat on Baltimore City Council in 1979 and served there for seven years, leading efforts to diversity city government and improve community safety. In 1986, he was elected to Congress, where he co-sponsored the Americans with Disabilities Act and helped strengthen the Equal Credit Opportunity Law.
As the leader of the NAACP, he worked to raise the organization’s national profile and restore its prominence.
Mfume also has experience in broadcasting, with 13 years in radio. He hosted the television show, “The Bottom Line” and a television special, “The Remarkable Journey.” His autobiography, “No Free Ride,” was a best-seller. He writes a national column on current events for BlackAmericaWeb.com.
He currently serves on the Johns Hopkins University board of trustees, the Morgan State University board of regents, the African American Board of PepsiCo and the National Advisory Council of Boy Scouts of America. He has received 10 honorary doctorate degrees and hundreds of other awards, proclamations and citations.
Formed in 2001, PPL’s African-American Business Resource Group has about 50 members and is open to all PPL employees. It is one of a half-dozen employee-led business resource groups whose members work with PPL management to cultivate a diverse workplace.
Tickets for the scholarship banquet are $40 per person. To order tickets, send a check made out to the African-American Business Resource Group’s scholarship fund to Anita Scott at PPL Electric Utilities, 600 Larch St., Scranton, PA 18509-2899. For more information, call 610-882-2628 or e-mail aefennell@pplweb.com.
PPL Corporation (NYSE: PPL), headquartered in Allentown, Pa., controls more than 11,000 megawatts of generating capacity in the United States, sells energy in key U.S. markets and delivers electricity to about 4 million customers in Pennsylvania and the United Kingdom.