12:25 p.m., Dec. 12, 2002--Tickets are on sale for the fourth annual Quintin E. Primo Jr. Lecture Series, featuring Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights. Her talk, the 2003 lecture, will be held at 7 p.m., Monday, Jan. 20, at the Playhouse Theatre in the Hotel du Pont, Wilmington.

Mary Robinson, past president of Ireland and former U.N. high commissioner for human rights

Tickets, $15 for adults and $10 for students and senior citizens, can be purchased at the Playhouse box office or by calling, 656-4401 or 800-338-0881.

Robinson's candor underscored her tenure both as president of Ireland from 1990-97 and later as U.N. high commissioner from 1997-2002.

“To campaign now for human rights and equality for all is to lay groundwork for sustainable development for all, development that will not compromise the needs, dreams and possibilities of future generations,” she said at International Youth Day, 2002.

The Primo Lecture Series is a nonprofit organization, inspired by the life of the Rt. Rev. Quintin E. Primo Jr. In his memory, citizens of the region work to uproot racial discrimination and injustice and to promote racial reconciliation at all levels of society.

The group‘s mission is to bring to Wilmington leaders with global perspectives to present public lectures and stimulate open, ongoing dialogue, thereby empowering the public to take action for racial justice and reconciliation in their own lives and institutions.

Bishop Primo was the first president of the National Union of Black Episcopalians; the first black bishop of Chicago; the first bishop to ordain women priests in that diocese and the first black Episcopal bishop in the diocese of Delaware.

Past speakers in the series have included Archbishop and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young. For more information, call 1-800-801-6444 or visit [www.primolectureseries.com/homepage/].

Article by Beth Thomas