Veteran Democratic political strategist Donna Brazile will serve as keynote speaker for Florida A&M University’s (FAMU) Fall 2010 Commencement Ceremony, Friday, December 10 in the Alfred Lawson Jr. Multipurpose Center and Teaching Gymnasium at 6 p.m.Brazile, a New Orleans native, is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, author of the best-selling memoir Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American
Politics, syndicated newspaper columnist for United Media, television political commentator to CNN and ABC, regular guest on This Week with Christiane Amanpour, vice chair of Voter Registration and Participation at the Democratic National Committee, and former chair of the Democratic National Committee’s Voting Rights Institute.
Aside from working for the full recovery of her beloved New Orleans, her passion is encouraging young people to vote, to volunteer, and to run for public office.
Brazile began her political career at the age of nine when she worked to elect a City Council candidate who had promised to build a playground in her neighborhood; the candidate won, the swing sets were installed, and a lifelong passion for political progress was ignited. Four decades later, Brazile has worked on every presidential campaign from 1976 through 2000, when she served as campaign manager for former Vice President Al Gore, becoming the first African-American woman to manage a presidential campaign.
In August 2009, O, The Oprah Magazine chose Brazile as one of its 20 “remarkable visionaries” for the magazine’s first-ever O Power List. In addition, she was named among the 100 Most Powerful Women by Washingtonian magazine, Top 50 Women in America by Essence magazine, and received the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s highest award for political achievement. Brazile is a former member of the board of directors of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, where she was responsible for leading the state’s rebuilding process in the aftermath of two catastrophic hurricanes.
Brazile is the proud recipient of honorary doctorate degrees from Louisiana State University and Xavier University (Louisiana), the only historically black-Catholic institution of higher education in the United States.
Brazile is founder and managing director of Brazile & Associates LLC, a general consulting, grassroots advocacy, and training firm based in Washington, DC.