Mike Espy to receive Witherspoon Award

Attorney Mike Espy of Jackson, Mississippi will receive the 16th annual Estelle Witherspoon Lifetime Achievement Award at a fundraising banquet Thursday, August 17 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on Interstate 495 in Birmingham, Alabama. The Award is part of The Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund's 50th Annual Meeting Celebration on August 17 to 19, 2017. Arising from the Civil Rights Movement, the Federation/LAF has served low-income farmers and rural people in the South.

Mike Espy with Federation/LAF members in Mississippi in 1990s

Espy, 63, served in the U.S. House of Representatives. While in Congress, he co-sponsored the "Minority Farmers Rights Bill" in the 1980s and helped to get several of its major components, including the Section 2501 Outreach Program, into the 1990 Farm Bill. From 1993 to 1994, he was President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Agriculture. As Secretary of Agriculture, Espy worked closely with the Federation/LAF on efforts to bring greater civil rights concerns to the department. As a lawyer, he worked with Federation/LAF members on the Black farmer lawsuit against the USDA. 

Estelle Witherspoon was the manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee in Alberta, Alabama and a founding member of the Federation/LAF.  Espy has worked closely with the Federation/LAF in all of his professional pursuits.
The organization was founded in 1967 by 22 cooperatives and credit unions.

For more information and to register for event, go to:  https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07eeb0tfmn9d9e569a&oseq=&c=&ch=