The NAACP Corpus Christi has announced the keynote speaker for its 2020 Freedom Fund Banquet.
Florida civil-rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who most recently acted as an attorney for the family of Botham Jean, the Dallas man shot to death in his own apartment by Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, will headline the local chapter's 50th annual event taking place at the American Bank Center on Jan. 18. The announcement was made on Tuesday afternoon.
Crump came into the national view after representing the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin was the 17-year-old boy shot to death by neighborhood watch director George Zimmerman in Sanford, Fla., and Michael Brown was an 18-year-old man fatally shot by police in Ferguson, Mo., that set off unrest in that city for weeks and put relations between between black men and women under a national microscope.
After Guyger's sentencing, Crump told members of the media that it shouldn't take a victim of Jean's credentials to get justice for minorities in the United States.
“Botham Jean was a near-perfect person of color, so this jury had to make history in America today,” Crump told reporters after Guyger was sentenced to 10 years in prison for fatally shooting Jean. “Botham was the best we had to offer.
"A 26-year-old college-educated black man, certified public accountant working for one of the big three accounting firms in the world, PricewaterhouseCoopers. But it shouldn't take all of that for unarmed black and brown people in America to get justice."
Crump recently also authored a book called "Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People."
Copies of the book are being offered to the first 1,000 tickets sold.
