Existing comment:
Stanley Nelson with Harris Wofford.
Harris Wofford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harris Llewellyn Wofford (born April 9, 1926) served as a Democratic U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania from 1991 to 1995 and as the fifth president of Bryn Mawr College, and is a noted advocate of national service and volunteering. Wofford was a surrogate for Barack Obama's campaign for president, and introduced Obama in Philadelphia at the National Constitution Center before Obama's speech on race in America, "A More Perfect Union."
Biography:
Harris Wofford was born in New York City in 1926. While attending high school, he was inspired by Clarence Streit's plea for a world government to found the Student Federalists.
Wofford served in the United States Army Air Forces during the Second World War. He is a 1948 graduate of the University of Chicago. He enrolled at Howard Law School, the first white student to do so since the early 1900s. After one year, he transferred to Yale Law School, where he graduated in June 1954.
He began his public service career as an attorney for the United States Commission on Civil Rights, serving from 1954 to 1958. In 1959, he became a law professor at University of Notre Dame. He was an early supporter of the Civil Rights movement in the south in the late 1950s and became a friend and unofficial advisor to Martin Luther King, Jr..
Kennedy administration:
Wofford's political career began in 1960 when he served as an adviser to the presidential campaign of John F. Kennedy. When King was imprisoned shortly before the election, Wofford persuaded Kennedy brother in law, Sargent Shriver, in a race down the freeway to O'Hare airport, to persuade Kennedy to call King's wife, Correta Scott King, who faced the spectre of her husband sentenced to hard labor, in a gulag like Georgia prison, for a minor traffic violation, while in advanced pregnancy. This was done with Ted Sorenson, Teddy Kennedy,and Ken O'Donnell, out of the room; all who would have opposed this move, because of the opposition from the Southern political leaders, like arch segregationist, Senator James Eastland. JFK's call helped shift the African American vote decisively in Kennedy's favor and may have won him the election.
In 1961, Kennedy appointed him, in a last minute decision, as a special assistant to the President on civil rights. He also served as chairman of the Subcabinet Group on Civil Rights. He was instrumental in the formation of the Peace Corps and served as the Peace Corps' special representative to Africa and director of operations in Ethiopia. He was appointed associate director of the Peace Corps in 1962 and held that position until 1966. Wofford's book Of Kennedys and Kings: Making Sense of the Sixties details his years in the civil rights movement and the creation of the Peace Corps. |