Annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner ft. Hillary Clinton to be held Sunday at COBO

DETROIT (WJBK) - The 61st Annual NAACP Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner will be held Sunday in Detroit, featuring Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton as keynote speaker.

The dinner celebrates the tradition and importance of diversity in America. There will be a press conference at 3 p.m. and the dinner begins at 5 p.m.

Detroit's NAACP president Rev. Wendell Anthony said the event is so much more than a Sunday meal.

"They come here not to eat chicken, but they come here to eat counsel, advice, to eat opportunity, to eat the cause of freedom, justice and equality so we're excited about that," he said.

Anthony said politics did not play a part in selecting the Democratic presidential candidate as the speaker. In fact, he said the process to book her actually began last year.

"NAACP does not endorse. We look at what people do, and she is not a stranger to our work. So anytime you can get someone of her stature to come and be a part, in the midst of her own campaign, to pull off that trail to come here and do this, that's a victory and triumph for our city," he said.

The local president is hopeful that Clinton will speak on the water crisis in Flint and the ongoing issues in Detroit Public Schools.

"I'm sure she's wise enough to be able to say let me do that, let me do this. When you come to something like that or like this, and you see the energy from the people, and you know what the issues are, she's a very sensitive person," Anthony said.

The theme this year ïs "Let America be America Again," a poem written by Langston Hughes in 1935, and it was structured for all people.

"To bring people together -- young people, old people, black, white, brown, red, yellow -- it's going to mellow in Detroit tomorrow," he said