Fri 1/24 @ 12:45PM
Valerie Jarrett was a young lawyer in Chicago when she went to work for the city’s first Black mayor Harold Washington, and later as deputy chief of staff for a subsequent Chicago mayor, Richard M. Daley. It was then that she hired another young lawyer from the city named Michelle Robinson, who would soon marry Barack Obama. Jarrett also served as the city’s commissioner of planning and development, and chair of the Chicago Transit Authority. And when President Obama went to the White House, she served as one of his top advisors for his entire eight years. Now she is the CEO of the Barack Obama Foundation, which is currently in the final stages of building the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood.
Jarrett will be the speaker at this year’s Case Western Reserve University for its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Convocation at the Tinkham Veale University Center. Dexter Voisin, the CWRU Mandel Dean of Applied Social Sciences, moderates. The event is free and open to all, and you can register to listen online as well.