3/6/09: Clyburn to speak May 16 at law school graduation

CHARLESTON, S.C., March 6, 2009 -- U.S. Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., will serve as the principal commencement speaker on May 16 during the graduation ceremony for the Class of 2009 of the Charleston School of Law, board chair Alex Sanders announced today.

"Congressman Clyburn will bring our students a unique opportunity to experience, simultaneously, a historic figure from the civil rights era and a public official now involved in the very highest echelons of government," Sanders said.

Clyburn, first elected to Congress in 1992, is recognized as the third most powerful member of the U.S. House of Representatives through his service as majority whip. Elected to the position in November 2006, Clyburn is the first South Carolinian and the second African American to become majority whip.

"It is my honor to serve as the commencement speaker for the Charleston School of Law," Congressman Clyburn said. "Had this school existed when I was a young man living and working in Charleston, perhaps I would have been able to finish the law degree I started in Columbia and didn't complete much to my wife's dismay. I thank Chairman Sanders and the Charleston School of Law for providing me this opportunity to participate in a law school graduation many years after I should have been participating in my own."

Clyburn and his wife, Emily, have been married for 47 years. They have three daughters, Mignon Clyburn, Angela Hannibal and Jennifer Reed; two sons-in-law, Cecil Hannibal and Walter Reed; and two grandchildren.

The Charleston School of Law's graduation ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. May 16 at McAlister Field House at The Citadel. More details will be forthcoming.

To learn more about Congressman Clyburn, visit: http://clyburn.house.gov/

• More information: Andy Brack, 843.670.3996