In honor of the 100th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the organization has created a list of the “100 Most Inspiring St. Louisans,” and 26 of the honorees are members of the University of Missouri-St. Louis community.

All 100 will be recognized Sunday at the St. Louis City NAACP Centennial Celebration and Annual Freedom Fund Dinner at the Hyatt Regency Riverfront Hotel in St. Louis. Lynn Beckwith, the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Teaching Professor for Urban Education at UMSL, and Robert Ray, associate professor of music at UMSL, are among those who will be recognized. UMSL Chancellor Tom George said he’s not surprised that more than one-fourth of the honorees are members of the UMSL family. “It’s difficult to gather a group of people from the St. Louis region and not find among them many of our alumni, faculty, students, staff and friends,” George said. “They are teachers, scientists, accountants, economists, counselors, artists, musicians, entrepreneurs and leaders in our community. As evidenced by their presence on the list of most inspiring St. Louisans, their influence is far-reaching.” Other recipients who have ties to the university include E. Desmond and Mary Ann Lee, Kenneth and Nancy Kranzberg, Malik and Deborah Ahmed, David Peacock, Robert Archibald, James Buford, Steven Cousins, Flint and June Fowler, Queen Fowler, Sam and Marilyn Fox, Frankie Muse Freeman, Debra Hollingsworth, Daniel Isom, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Fredrick and Patricia McKissack, Marylen Mann, Martin Mathews, Deborah Patterson, Norman Seay, Ellen Sherberg, Donald Suggs, Cheryl D. S. Walker, Margaret Bush Wilson and Lois Conley. Click here to download the list of inspiring St. Louisans that was published Sunday in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. (Adobe Reader is required.)