An internationally recognized expert on race and education will be the special guest speaker at the Niles Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s annual Freedom Fund Banquet.

Dr. Marvin Lynn, a professor and dean of the school of education at Indiana University South Bend, will speak during the event, which is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Saturday, April 23, at the Niles Senior Center at 1109 Bell Road in Niles.

Cost is $30 for adults, $20 for youth and $15 for children under 12 years of age.

Hospitality starts at 5:30 p.m. with the banquet following at 6:30 p.m.

The theme of the banquet is “Knowledge: Respect it. Pursue it. Embrace it. Share it.”

As a scholar, Lynn is an internationally recognized expert on race and education. He has been invited to speak as a keynote presenter at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and at the Thinking Globally, Counseling Locally Conference in Trinidad & Tobago.

He is also frequently invited to share his expertise in the United States. In 2013, he gave the Freeman Butts Lecture at the American Educational Studies Association Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Recently, he has shared his expertise at St. Cloud University in Minnesota, Ball State University in Indiana and elsewhere.

He is the lead editor of the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education published simultaneously in the U.S. and the U.K. with Routledge Press.

He serves as an editorial board member of several journals, and has published more than two-dozen research articles and book chapters in reputable outlets.