Former Senator and Governor of Arkansas Dale Bumpers will be featured lecturer at Delta Blues Symposium X: The 1950s, to be held on the Arkansas State University campus.

His lecture, “Brown vs. Board of Education and the Damage of Delays,” will be delivered at 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 27, in the theatre of the Fowler Center, 201 Olympic Dr.

All Delta Symposium events are free and open to the public.

Bumpers, who grew up and practiced law in Charleston, Arkansas, will elaborate on portions of his book, “Best Lawyer in a One Lawyer Town,” which treats his life before entering politics. Copies of the book will be available.

Bumpers was first elected to the Senate in 1974, and subsequently served four terms. Previously, he served two terms as Governor of Arkansas, during which time he reorganized state government and trimmed the number of state agencies from 69 to 13, doubled the number of state parks, began the state kindergarten program, and launched a program which doubled the number of doctors trained at Arkansas’ only medical school.

After serving in the U. S. Marine Corps during World War II, Bumpers returned to continue his undergraduate work at the University of Arkansas and later received a law degree from Northwestern University.

As senator, Bumpers left a far-reaching legacy. Calling the U. S. Constitution a “sacred document,” he is proud of having voted 38 times against attempts to amend it. With his wife Betty, Bumpers has been a national leader in promoting childhood immunization. Although he retired from the Senate on January 3, 1999, he was called back three weeks later to deliver the closing argument for the defense in the impeachment proceedings against President Bill Clinton.

Bumpers has received numerous awards and honors. In 1993, he received Medal of the Society from the National Park Foundation and the Dream Award from the National Association of Home Builders. Senator and Mrs. Bumpers jointly received the 1995 Maxwell Finland Award from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. In 1996 the University of Arkansas renamed its College of Agriculture as the “Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food, and Life Sciences. The following year he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Conservation Voters, and in 1999 the National Institute of Health named a new structure on its campus the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center.

Delta Blues Symposium X is sponsored by the Department of English and Philosophy with help from the Department of Music, Department of Theatre, Department of Political Science, Heritage Studies Ph.D. Program, Office of the President, and Museum.

For further information on this and other Delta Blues Symposium activities, contact the Department of English and Philosophy at Arkansas State University at 870-972-3043. A full schedule of Symposium activities is available at http://www.clt.astate.edu/blues.