The Appomattox NAACP Branch will hold its Annual Freedom Fund Banquet on Saturday, May 16, 5 p.m., at the Carver-Price Cultural Center. Tickets are available at $20 each and may be purchased from members or at the CPCC.

Speaker for this year’s event is Dr. Amy Tillerson-Brown, Ph.D., associate professor of history with tenure at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, where she also directs the African American Studies and Public History programs.

She earned both her B.A. and M.A. degrees from Virginia Tech and her Ph.D. in history from Morgan State University, Baltimore, MD. Before accepting her position at Mary Baldwin College, she was director of African American Heritage Program at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities at UVA. She has taught in the history departments at Virginia Tech., Morgan State and Piedmont Virginia Community College. She has also been a public school teacher and counselor in Roanoke City Public Schools and Baltimore City Public Schools.

For her dissertation, Tillerson-Brown researched the activism of Black women in Prince Edward County, between 1930 and 1965. Prince Edward County is most well-known for the school crisis that closed public schools for five years. Dr. Dillerson-Brown has published numerous articles, planned conference, written grants, lectured, and given speeches throughout Virginia and its surrounding area.

The 2015 year the national NAACP theme is: “Perusing Liberty in the Face of Injustice.” Dr. Tillerson-Brown is the daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Tillerson, of Prospect. She is married to Nathaniel Brown II and they have two children, Maya and Nate, III. They reside in Waynesboro.