In celebration of Black History Month, the Oak Ridge Chapter of Blacks in Government (BIG) is sponsoring the 20th Annual BIG Scholarship Luncheon from 11-1 p.m. Thursday at the Oak Ridge Civic Center.

Keynote speaker Derrick Johnson will speak on the 2014 Black History Month theme “Civil Rights in America.”

Johnson serves as state president for the Mississippi State Conference NAACP, and executive director of One Voice, Inc. He recently served as a Mel King Community Fellow with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has a Juris Doctorate from South Texas College of Law in Houston, Texas, and a bachelor’s degree from Tougaloo College in Jackson, Miss. Johnson serves on the NAACP national board of directors, the boards of the Mississippi ACLU and the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and on the Advisory Council of the Mississippi Economic Policy Center. Additionally, he was appointed by the Chief Justice of the Mississippi Supreme Court as a commissioner to the Mississippi Access to Justice Commission. [Read more…]