Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, former Secretary of State, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1971-77), is the convening founder and currently serves as the Chair of the National Political Congress of Black Women, Inc., having succeeded the Hon. Shirley Chisholm in 1992. She is the President of the Bethune-DuBois Institute, Inc., which she founded in 1986. Dr. Tucker also launched and serves as publisher of the historical publication, "Vital Issues: A Journal of African American Speeches." She was formerly the Chair of the Democratic National Committee Black Caucus and is the founding President of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Association for Non-Violent Change, the first and only Association in the U.S. to be commissioned by Mrs. Coretta Scott King. Dr. Tucker was the first African American to serve as President of the National Federation of Democratic Women.

Dr. Tucker was recently selected by People Magazine as one of "25 of the Most Intriguing People in the World" in 1996 and was also selected as a People's Yearbook Honoree. She was featured in the inaugural issue of John F. Kennedy Jr.'s George Magazine for her crusade against gangsta/porno rap. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton referred to Dr. Tucker's concern for children in her book, It Takes A Village. She attended Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. She is the recipient of two honorary Doctor of Laws Degrees from Morris College in Alabama and Villa Maria College in Pennsylvania.

Dr. Tucker was the first African American woman in the nation to serve as Secretary of State. During that time, she instituted the first Commission on the Status of Women in Pennsylvania and was responsible for the Governor's appointment of more women and Blacks to Boards, Commissions and judgeships than in the entire history of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. She also led the effort to make Pennsylvania one of the first states to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, Voter Registration by mail and reduced the voting age from 21 to 18. She further abolished restrictions that would not permit students to register and vote from their College area.

As a member of the Democratic National Committee, Dr. Tucker was one of the original organizers of the DNC Black Caucus and the Women's Caucus. She served on the Charter Commission to ensure that women, blacks and minorities had fair representation at all levels of the Democratic Party. She is also a founder of the National Women's Political Caucus.

Dr. Tucker's civic activities include her participation with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. She was a delegate to the historic White House Conference on Civil Rights. She presently serves as a member of the NAACP Board of Trustees, Board of Trustees of Delaware Valley College and the Commonwealth Medical College of Pennsylvania. She was recently elected to the Board of the Points of Light Foundation which sponsored the President's Summit on Volunteerism in Philadelphia in 1997.

Two of the highlights of her speaking career occurred recently when she and First Lady Hillary Clinton were the Keynote Speakers for the Pentagon Observance of National Women's History Month, and when she and Coretta Scott King were the Keynote Speakers for the Women's Assembly at the African/African-American Summit held July 1997 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

Among the more than 400 awards and honors received by Dr. Tucker are the Philadelphia Urban League Whitney Young Award (1990), NAACP Thurgood Marshall Award (1982), the NAACP Freedom Fund Award and Ebony Magazine's "100 Most Influential Black Americans" Community Service Award, and the Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Service Award from Mrs. Coretta Scott King, founder of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolence in Atlanta, Georgia. She was also named by the National Women's Political Caucus and Redbook Magazine as the woman best qualified to be Ambassador to the United Nations and recently received an Award for "1997 Newsmaker of the Year" from the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

She is the wife of William Tucker and the daughter of the late Reverend Whitfield and Mrs. Captilda Nottage.