Sylvia Mendez, a civil rights activist and recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, speaks from 7 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 14, at the Green River College Kent Campus, 417 Ramsay Way.

Mendez, 83, is the first speaker in the city of Kent’s new Equity & Inclusion Speaker Series. It is a free event and open to the public.

At age 8, Mendez played an instrumental role in the Mendez v. Westminster case in 1946, the landmark desegregation case that set an important legal precedent for ending segregation in the United States, paving the way for Brown v. Board of education seven years later. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.

The Equity and Inclusion Speaker Series will feature distinguished leaders who will contribute expert knowledge and diverse perspectives to the collective discussion around concepts like race, equity, diversity and inclusion, according to the city of Kent.