TROY, Ala. – A nationally noted Civil Rights advocate and a trailblazer in the field of higher education will be the keynote speakers for the sixth annual Leadership Conference Celebrating Black History Month presented by Troy University and the City of Troy. The conference is set for Feb. 2-3 in the Trojan Center Ballrooms on the Troy Campus.

The Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery, co-founder and president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, will deliver the keynote address on Feb. 2, while Dr. Belle Wheelan, the first African American and woman to fill the role of president of the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, will serve as the keynote speaker on Feb. 3.

Called the “Dean of the Civil Rights Movement” by the NAACP, Lowery was born in Huntsville in 1921 and began his work with civil rights in the early 1950s in Mobile. There, he headed the Alabama Civic Affairs Association, an organization devoted to the desegregation of buses and public places.

Lowery is a co-founder and chairman emeritus of the Black Leadership Forum, a consortium of black advocacy groups, as well as a convener of the Coalition for The Peoples’ Agenda.

As a United Methodist minister, Lowery served as pastor of churches in Mobile, Birmingham and Atlanta, GA and served as a delegate to three General Conferences, the quadrennial meeting of the denomination’s top legislative body.

Lowery has received numerous awards, including an NAACP Lifetime Achievement Award, the Martin Luther King Center Peace Award and the National Urban League’s Whitney M. Young, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award. He has twice been named as one of the “Fifteen Greatest Black Preachers” by “Ebony” magazine and holds honorary doctorates from Dillard University, Morehouse College, Alabama State University and the University of Alabama, among others. Lowery is a graduate of Alabama A&M University, Knoxville College, Payne College and Theological Seminary and the Chicago Ecumenical Institute.

Wheelan’s career in higher education spans 32 years. Prior to taking her present post as president of the Commission on Colleges in 2005, she served as the secretary of education for the state of Virginia. She previously served as president of Northern Virginia Community College, the state’s largest institution of higher education and the nation’s second largest community college.

In 1992, Wheelan became the first African American woman to serve as president of a two- or four-year public institution of higher education in the Commonwealth of Virginia when she took over the role at Central Virginia Community College.

Prior to her presidencies, Wheelan held faculty and administrative posts at the Portsmouth Campus of Tidewater Community College in Virginia, Thomas Nelson Community College in Hampton, VA, and San Antonio College in Texas.

Wheelan holds a bachelor’s degree with a double major in psychology and sociology from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, a master’s degree from Louisiana State University and a doctorate in educational administration from the University of Texas.

The theme of this year’s conference, which is designed to bring together local residents in Troy and surrounding communities, civic and community leaders, clergymen and business leaders in a collaborative and educational forum, is “Leadership by Design: Ensuring our Legacy.”

The conference will feature several presentations on “Designing Character,” “Competency and Communication,” “Designing Safe Communities” and “Designing Healthy Communities.”

Other featured speakers include Dr. Robert Jennings, president of Alabama A&M in Normal; Mrs. Gwendolyn Mosley, prison warden with the Alabama Department of Corrections in Clio; Capt. Huey Thornton of the Montgomery Police Department; Shelia Deveridge, a Social Security claims representative with the Montgomery office; Dr. Yolanda Patterson, MD, of the Charles Henderson Health Care Center; and Dr. Angelique Murphy of Troy, who will provide total health and wellness information.

The conference is open to the public and the registration fee is $30 per person. For more information, contact the Institute for Leadership Development at 670-3389.

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