Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and best-selling author, will deliver the keynote address at the 24th Gerald E. Kandler Memorial Award Dinner sponsored by the Delaware Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the American Civil Liberties Foundation (ACLF).
The local chapter's dinner is scheduled for next week.
Suskind is a former Delaware resident and graduate of Wilmington’s Concord High School in Brandywine Hundred.
He was the senior national affairs writer for The Wall Street Journal from 1993 to 2000 and has published four important works of non-fiction framing national debates while exploring the complexities of human experience, "Hope in the Unseen," "The Price of Loyalty," "The One Percent Doctrine" and his most recent New York Times bestseller, "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism" (August 2008), which is a multi-layered narrative about the forces at home and abroad fighting today’s battles for hope and security.
Suskind often appears on network television, and currently writes for Time Magazine, The New York Times Magazine, Esquire and the Wall Street Journal.
During the dinner, the 24th annual award Gerald E. Kandler awards will be presented in memory of Gerald E. Kandler, Esq., president of the Delaware ACLU from 1971 to 1985 and an ardent advocate and defender of civil liberties. The award each year is presented to Delawareans who uphold the ideals to which his life was devoted.
The 2009 honorees are Lawrence A. Hamermesh, Esq., professor of Law at Widener University and Thomas J. Allingham II, Esq., corporate litigation partner at Skadden LLP.
Hamermesh has worked on behalf of civil liberties for many years as a member and president of the ACLU of Delaware Board; and has also served as a member of the ACLU National Board. In 1992, he argued before the Delaware Supreme Court on behalf of Stephen Pennell, the first person executed in Delaware after the death penalty was reinstated.
Hamermesh was also an early proponent of gay equality, and testified before the state legislature at a time when this was not a popular position. He has given both formal and informal counsel in numerous civil rights cases.
Allingham has taken on a number of pro bono cases, most notably Riley v. Taylor, in which a death sentence was overturned when the federal court found that the jury selection process racially discriminatory and unconstitutional because every black juror in the jury pool was stricken from the jury.
Allingham also represented the Dobrich and Doe families in their cases against the Indian River School District, which challenged Christian prayer at graduation ceremonies and religious teaching in schools.
The ACLU/ACCC dinner at the Hotel du Pont in Wilmington will be held at 5:30 pm Wednesday, Oct. 7 with a reception followed by dinner at 6:30 pm. Reservations are available. For more information, visit www.aclu-de.org or call 302-654-5326, ext. 101.
