Federal Judge Donald L. Graham, a Salisbury native and J.C. Price High School graduate, will return to Salisbury Monday as keynote speaker at the 22nd Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast.
The Salisbury-Rowan Human Relations Council is host for the breakfast.
Sen. Elizabeth Dole, also a Salisbury native, plans to attend the breakfast, according to a release from her office.
The King Day celebration, to be held at the Salisbury Civic Center, 315 S. Boundary St., starts at 7:30 a.m Monday and kicks off a day of citywide festivities connected to the King national holiday.
Those interested in attending may contact the city of Salisbury’s Human Resources Department at 704-638-5217.
Graham is the son of Mildred Donald Graham and the late Ernest Graham. A 1967 graduate of J.C. Price High School, Graham is a member of the last graduating class from Price, Salisbury’s former all-black high school.
Graham holds a bachelor’s degree with magna cum laude honors from West Virginia State University and a law degree from Ohio State College of Law.
While at Ohio State, Graham received a Best “Oralist” Award in the Moot Court Program and the Judge Harter Award as the Outstanding Trial Practice Student.
After school, Graham served a four-year term in Germany as an Army attorney and was later stationed south of Miami, at Homestead Air Force Base, until he left the service in 1979.
In Florida, Graham soon became a member of the U.S. District Attorney’s office and served as chief of the Major Narcotics Traffickers Section, Special Prosecutions, Organized Crime and Racketeering.
Graham opened his own law practice in 1984. Within six months, an old friend, Martin Raskin, joined the firm, and the partners tried cases throughout the nation.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush appointed Graham as U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Florida. Graham was the first African-American federal judge in Florida.
Graham still holds the federal judgeship today and has been named one of Miami’s most influential black business professionals by Network Miami.
In addition, Graham serves as adjunct instructor in the U.S. Department of Justice Trial Advocacy Program, and as a lecturer on behalf of the Department of Justice and Department of Commerce in Cebu and Manila, Philippines; in Shenyan, Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Shanghai, Peoples Republic of China; and in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Graham has served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Board on the Investigative Capacity of the Department of Defense and is a faculty member for the Trial Advocacy Workshop at Harvard Law School, Cambridge, Mass.
Graham’s community activities include the 5,000 Role Models of Excellence Project; the Board of Directors of the Performing Arts Center for Greater Miami Trust; Network Miami Magazine’s 50 Most Influential Black Business Professionals; and the Just the Beginning Foundation.
Graham has a daughter, Sherrian Graham-Ross, and a grandson, Chase Ross.