News
Johnson to speak at MLK event
January 14th, 2015
The Neshoba Democrat | Philadelphia, MS
By: Debbie Burt Myers
Derrick Johnson, president for the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP and executive director of One Voice, INc., will be the guest speaker at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King program Sunday.
The program will begin at 2 p.m. at Westside Park.
The annual Dr. Martin Luther King parade will be that morning through downtown Philadelphia starting at 11 a.m.
The Dr. King Celebration will also include a march from Martin Luther King Drive to Westside Park on Monday, Jan. 19 at 2 p.m. The march will begin behind Booker T. Washington School. All churches were asked to participate.
Organizers are still accepting applications for the parade. The fee is $25. For more information call 601-479-1370.
Johnson recently served as a Mel King Community Fellow with Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a juris doctorate from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas, and a Bachelor of Arts from Tougaloo College in Jackson.
Johnson serves on the Board of Directors of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, the Advisory Council of the Mississippi Economic Policy Center and as an adjunct professor at Tougaloo College. Additionally, Johnson was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court as a Commissioner to the Mississippi Access to Justice Commission.
Before assuming his current roles, Johnson served as a Fellow with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation in Washington, D.C., working in the office of Congressman Bennie G. Thompson as well as a Fellow with The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management Minority Fellowship Program.
Johnson also served on the staff of Southern Echo, Inc., a non-profit organization located in Jackson as a regional organizer providing legal, technical, and training support for communities within six states across the south (Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, And South Carolina).
Additionally, Johnson was appointed by the Governor of the State of Mississippi as Vice-Chair of the Governor’s Commission for Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal after devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Johnson founded One Voice Inc. (formerly Community Policy Research and Training Institute), a non-profit social justice organization whose mission is to improve the quality of life for African Americans and other disenfranchised communities by increasing civic engagement in the formation of public policy through leadership development, research support, training and technical assistance. since its inception, One Voice sponsors an annual Black Leadership Summit for elected and appointed officials and established the Mississippi Black Leadership Institute, a nine month program to support local leadership development for emerging and established community leaders between the ages of 25 and 45.
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