The Seventh Annual Jessie Redmon Fauset Day will feature a keynote talk by Dr. Clement A. Price, Distinguished Professor of History at Rutgers University, Newark. Dr. Price is a foremost public intellectual in New Jersey and scholar of African American life.

This year's celebration is sponsored by the Lawnside Historical Society in honor of Harlem Renaissance editor, writer and poet, Jessie Redmon Fauset, a native of Lawnside and dedicated to the memory of Giles R. Wright, Jr., director of the African American Programs department of the New Jersey Historical Commission. Mr. Wright, who died in February 2009, was an adviser, consultant and friend to the Society.

The program scheduled for April 24 starts at 2 p.m. in the Lawnside Public School, 426 E. Charleston Ave. will also showcase readings by winners of the third annual Spirit of the Renaissance poetry-writing competition for fifth through twelfth graders in Camden, Burlington and Gloucester counties. Plaques and cash prizes will be awarded. Saxophonist Nasir Dickerson and the Renaissance Messengers and Napalm, spoken word artist, will perform. Lawnside native Dr. Cord Whitaker of the University of New Hampshire will be master of ceremonies. Tickets are $5 for adults and $2 for students.

Dr. Price has written and edited several books and organizes conferences and symposia as director of the Rutgers Institute on Ethnicity, Culture, and the Modern Experience at Rutgers-Newark. He is a graduate of the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut and earned his Ph.D. from Rutgers University. He is a trustee of the Urban Libraries Council and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, president of the Newark Public Schools Foundation, and a member of the Scholarly Advisory Committee to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Smithsonian Institution. He is the most senior member of the Board of Trustees of the Newark Public Library and serves on the Steering Committee of the Newark Black Film Festival.

In April 2008, Dr. Price became a member of The New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, a federally established committee that reports on civil rights matters of importance to New Jersey citizens. Dr. Price serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship (JCES). He was recently appointed to the advisory council for the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He served as agency lead for the National Endowment for the Humanities, President Elect Barack Obama Transition Team, 2008-2009.

Dr. Whitaker is an assistant professor of English at the University of New Hampshire who specializes in Chaucer, late medieval romance, racial and religious discourses in late medieval English literature. He graduated from Haddon Heights High School and Yale University. He earned his master's and doctorate at Duke University.

Mr. Dickerson earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music performance and music education from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. The Camden native is a key member of the internationally traveled Universal African Dance & Drum Ensemble of the Unity Community Center. He released his first CD, "Journey to the Fatherland." He and the Renaissance Messengers have performed at Jessie Redmon Fauset Day for the past two years. Mr. Dickerson teaches music in the Camden Public Schools.

Napalm (Lamont Dixon) is a poetry performer and spoken word artist with a strong jazz bent. The Philadelphian conducts workshops and serves as poet in residence through the New Jersey and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and several universities. He has judged the Spirit of the Renaissance competition for the past two years. He has appeared on "African Rhythm Tongues" with Khan Jamal and others. He served as co-executive producer for Russell Simmons' Def Poetry Jam Tour in Philadelphia. His book, "Come Ride My Poems" Jessie Redmon Fauset was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, poet and literary editor for the NAACP's Crisis magazine. She was a protégé of the legendary editor, activist and intellectual W.E.B. DuBois. Miss Fauset was born in Lawnside in 1882 when her father was pastor of Mount Pisgah A.M.E. Church. The family moved to Philadelphia when she was a young girl. She graduated from Girls' High School in the city, Cornell University and the Sorbonne in Paris. The Historical Society began honoring Miss Fauset in 2004.