The Delta Memorial Endowment Fund’s 34th Annual Literary Luncheon will host award-winning journalist and BET News Correspondent, Jeff Johnson (a.k.a “Cousin Jeff”), as he discusses his new book, Everything I’m Not Made Me Everything I Am. The event takes place on Saturday, April 24 from 11:30 a.m. – 2 p.m. at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago Street in Milwaukee. DMEF is the non-profit corporation of the Milwaukee Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and the Literary Luncheon is DMEF’s signature fundraising event. Tickets are $50 per person.
The Literary Luncheon is the brainchild of Dorothy Nelle Sanders, a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and one of DMEF’s founders. Its goal is to increase public interest and knowledge of literary works by African American authors and raise money for college scholarships that are awarded to students during the luncheon.
More than $125,000 has been raised for student scholarships since DMEF’s inception. Featured authors at the Literary Luncheon have included Maya Angelou, Daisy Bates, the late Octavia Butler, Nikki Giovanni, Fannie Lou Hamer, Toni Morrison, Alice E. Walker, the late E. Lynn Harris, Wallace Terry, Victoria Christopher Murray, Denise Nicholas, Patricia Haley and Pearl Cleage.
The Literary Luncheon also features the next generation through its Literary Write-Off competition, a thematic essay contest that asks students to write about a current event. To learn more about the Delta Memorial Endowment Fund’s upcoming Literary Luncheon or to purchase tickets, call (414) 297-9790. There will be no onsite ticket sales.
Currently, he is managing editor and chief correspondent for The Truth with Jeff Johnson, a hard-hitting, talk show airing Friday’s at 11 pm ET on BET where he has earned a reputation as the “conscience voice” of network for his positive force among youth and young adults.
The only American reporter to receive an exclusive post-inauguration interview with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state and Liberia’s first elected female president. Johnson is also one of only two news correspondents to receive an exclusive interview with Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir, who has not granted interviews with American media outlets for thirteen years.
Recently, he won a 2008 NABJ Salute to Excellence Award for BET’s “Life & Death in Darfur, Jeff Johnson Reports” series. A source of information quoted in Newsweek, National Journal and Boston Globe, he regularly contributes commentary and analysis about issues related to race, politics, popular culture and socio-economics for news broadcasts and publications such as MSNBC’s Dayside and Hardball with Chris Matthews, CNN, Fox News Channel, Huffington Post, CNN.com, The Root.com, Upscale, J’Adore, N’Digo and EbonyJet.com.
Jeff is also one of 30 young leaders under 35 selected by the British Council to be apart of its Transatlantic 2020 team who are joining together from Europe and America to begin a new crossborder dialogue at a critical time to reinvigorate traditional alliances and mend transatlantic rifts.
Jeff Johnson consistently challenges audiences to innovatively weigh solutions to resolve historic and systemic social imbalances and inequalities.