Drew Dixon
Florida State University (FSU) is hosting a celebration of the life of one of Florida’s foremost advocates of senior rights in the state’s history this week.
The university in the state capital along with the Claude Pepper Foundation is marking the 125th anniversary of the birth of Sen. Claude Pepper on Friday. Pepper was a monumental figure in Washington, D.C. where he was a passionate leader of the rights of senior citizens not only in Florida, but across America.
The commemorative event is being held Friday from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Broad Auditorium in the Claude Pepper Center Building on the FSU Campus. The event will involve keynote speeches from the likes of James C. Clark, a senior lecturer at the University of Central Florida and presentations explaining Pepper’s influence on FSU and why his name is on the FSU library and museum.
There will also be discussion on the legacy of his public service, health care and advocacy for the elderly.
Those wishing to attend the event must have already agreed to an RSVP that was closed Sept. 1.
Attendees will also witness a screening of a documentary “The Legacy of Claude Denson Pepper,” a new documentary. The film features and chronicles the life and work of the man who had an outstanding political presence through much of the 20th century in the United States.
The Claude Pepper Foundation is dedicated to maintaining the legacy of Pepper who was born in 1900 and passed in 1989.
He went to Washington as a U.S. Senator after being elected in Florida in 1936 and served in that chamber until 1951. He won the Senatorial race after serving one term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Later he was elected to return to the U.S. House of Representatives when he was voted in to that chamber in 1963. He held that post until his death in 1989.
