Published on January 29, 2001 by Mary Wimberley  

Black History Month events at Samford University include the annual Thurgood Marshall Speakers Symposium on Thursday, Feb. 15, and a talk by former professional basketball player Paula McGee on Tuesday, Feb. 20. Both programs are open to the public free of charge.

The seventh annual Thurgood Marshall Symposium is sponsored by the Cumberland School of Law chapter of the Black Law Students Association,

Speakers are Washington, D.C., attorney A.J. Cooper, who founded the Black Law Students Association while a student at New York University School of Law; and Camille deJorna, assistant dean, University of Iowa College of Law, and a nationally known speaker on the topic of minorities in legal education.

The symposium will be at 11 a.m. in the moot courtroom of Robinson law building at Samford.

Cumberland and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute will also co-sponsor a two-day conference, "Civil Rights in the New Decade," Feb. 15 and 16. Programs will be held in Robinson Hall and at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Paula McGee, preacher, lecturer and motivational speaker will speak aspart of Samford's convocation series on Tuesday, Feb. 20, at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel.

McGee is president of Paula McGee Ministries, a nonprofit organization with a mission to help others discover their calling and find personal peace and self-fulfillment.

McGee and her twin sister were star basketball players at Northern High School in Flint, Michigan, and at the University of Southern California, where they teamed with Cheryl Miller to win back-to-back national championships in 1983 and 1984.

Her professional career included a tryout with the Harlem Globetrotters, a season with the Dallas Diamonds of the Women's American Basketball Association, and five seasons in Italy and Spain. She ended her basketball career to purse a calling to preach. Now an ordained minister and the former dean of chapel at historic Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., she holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Ga., and a Master of Arts in Religion from Vanderbilt University.

 

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.