Kendrick Meek: “I am honored and I want to thank Members of Congress for allowing me to make this statement. This is concerning the…”

“I am honored and I want to thank Members of Congress for allowing me to make this statement. This is concerning the death of a very dear friend of mine and a great American that has served our country, Marianne Russo. On November 12, 2007, Ms. Russo died at the age of 71 in her home in Elkdale House in Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Ms. Russo was born on May 7, 1936, in New Canaan, Connecticut. She graduated from Little Red Schoolhouse, New Canaan Country Day School, the Baldwin School and Mount Holyoke College. She earned a master's degree in history at Columbia University and a master's in linguistics at the University of Delaware. During the peak of the civil rights movement, Ms. Russo and her husband, the late Paul Anthony Russo, made a significant contribution to history by teaching at Lincoln University, a historically black institution. Ms. Russo's passion for teaching and writing prompted her to organize a local writers' group and participated in the Key West Literary Seminar, which created the Marianne Russo scholarship for inspiring writers. In addition to this achieving excellence as a teacher and a writer, Ms. Russo coordinated grass-roots efforts to elect progressive Democratic candidates to serve on local, State and Federal Government levels. In fact, she was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the OxGrove Democratic Committee.”