Obama Campaign Supporter Jerome Gray to Speak on Feb. 12 at College

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Jerome Gray

CORTLAND, NY (02/03/2009)(readMedia)-- Jerome Gray, political director of the Barack Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign for the State of Alabama, will discuss the implications of changes he observed in the state's racial voting patterns in the 2008 presidential elections, on Thursday, Feb. 12, at SUNY Cortland.

Gray, who is also executive assistant to the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture, will lecture on "'Old Wine in New Bottles' or 'Real Change We Can Live With?'" at noon in Brockway Hall, Jacobus Lounge.

The talk, which is free and open to the public, is part of the College's commemoration of Black History Month throughout February.

Gray's lecture will address white and black voting patterns in the 2008 election among Alabama voters and their implications for dynamic political change in America.

Known as an effective mediator, creative demographer and expert commentator on grassroots politics in settling redistricting cases, Gray has been a representative for many African Americans and their quest for political equality in America.

In the 1980s and 1990s, he played a major role in organizing and mobilizing black citizens at the county and municipal levels to successfully challenge discriminatory elections systems locally. For more than twenty years, he participated as a member of the Alabama Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which investigated such harsh realities as police brutality, church burnings and community relations throughout the state of Alabama.

In 2001, Gray was one of eight selected Americans to monitor the presidential election in The Gambia, West Africa. In 2005, he testified before the House of Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., to support the renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Gray served as state field director for the Alabama Democratic Conference, the state's black political caucus, for 27 years, before retiring in 2006.

Presently, he plays a critical role in the Alabama Restore the Vote Coalition that seeks to help eligible ex-felons restore their voting rights.

A native of Evergreen, Alabama, Gray holds undergraduate degrees in biology and English. He attended graduate school at Stanford University, studying creative writing on a Ford Foundation Fellowship.

Black History Month is co-sponsored by the Offices of the President and Provost, the Center for Intercultural and Gender Studies, the Office of Vice President for Student Affairs, the Multicultural Life Office, the Office of the Dean of Arts and Sciences, the Political Science Department, the Campus Artists and Lecture Series (CALS), the Africana Studies Department, the Communication Studies Department, the Black Student Union and the Caribbean Student Association.

For more information about Black History Month, contact Distinguished Service Professor Samuel L. Kelley at (607) 753-4104 or at sam.kelley@cortland.edu.

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