Posted: Wednesday, January 14, 2009 10:56 am

The Messenger 01.14.09

Veronica F. Coleman-Davis, president and CEO of National Institute of Law and Equity, will be the guest speaker at the 24th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Luncheon hosted by Dyersburg State Community College and the Dyersburg/Dyer County Chamber of Commerce.
The event will take place at noon Friday in the Student Center on the Dyersburg campus.
Ms. Coleman-Davis has been recognized for her outstanding leadership in the law profession and community service. Among her many awards are the University of Memphis Distinguished Alumni Award in 1994, the 1998 FBI Director’s Award for Community Service and the 2000 Women in Federal Law Enforcement National Lifetime Achievement Award.
A resident of Memphis, Ms. Coleman-Davis has practiced law for 30 years, serving as public and private defense attorney, public prosecutor, in-house counsel at the University of Memphis and litigator for Federal Express Corp.
In the fall of 1993, she was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, a position in which she served until the spring of 2001.
After leaving the U.S. Attorney position, Ms. Coleman-Davis co-founded the National Institute of Law and Equity (NILE) in August of 2001 with other former U.S. Attorney colleagues. The NILE is a national public policy institute whose mission is to raise discussion and public policy debates on current criminal justice paradigms and their economic, social and cultural impact on the American way of life, particularly the impact on African-Americans and other minorities.
Ms. Coleman-Davis has also made significant contributions as a community service leader. She founded Mothers of the NILE to reduce the number of children entering the juvenile justice system. Under this organization, Ms. Coleman-Davis initiated the Parent Partner Program to address middle school truancy through parent mentoring.
Ms. Coleman-Davis received a bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Howard University and a juris doctor from the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law at the University of Memphis.
She is married and has three adult sons.
Tickets for the luncheon must be purchased in advance and are $10 each.
The tickets will be on sale through today at the DSCC business office, located in the Eller Building on the Dyersburg campus, and at the Dyersburg/Dyer County Chamber of Commerce.