Connerly, Ward, 1939- (Personal Name)

His Creating equal, 2000: CIP t.p. (Ward Connerly) data sheet (b. 13 June 1939)

African American National Biography, accessed via The Oxford African American Studies Center online database, July 27, 2014: (Connerly, Ward; political activist, civil rights activist, political consultant, entrepreneur; born 15 June 1939 in Leesville, Louisiana, United States; entered American River Junior College (1957); transferred to Sacramento State College (1959) and earned a BA degree with honors in Political Science (1962); became the first black student to pledge to the all-white Delta Phi Omega fraternity, and later he became an honorary member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity; served as student body president; expanded his activism to the larger Sacramento community through campaigning against housing discrimination, which resulted in a bill to ban the practice in the state; left government and founded the firm of Connerly & Associates, a consulting and land-use planning company; during the next twenty years he became a successful businessman, gaining membership in the Rotary Club of Sacramento and becoming a lifetime member of the California Building Industry Hall of Fame; appointed to the California Board of Regents (1993) where he asserted his opposition to affirmative action and became a major advocate of a state initiative, Proposition 209; became the chairman of the California Civil Rights Initiative Campaign (1995); formed the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) (1997); also formed the American Civil Rights Coalition as the nonprofit lobbying and initiative-introducing arm of ACRI; between 1997 and 1999 spearheaded moves to pass similar affirmative-action bans in Houston, Texas, and Florida; could best be described as Republican with a libertarian bent, with a multiracial ancestry (Black, Irish, French, and Choctaw))