Cincinnati Bell Inc. and Convergys Corporation will donate $1 million to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for a lecture series named after Cincinnati's first black mayor.

The Theodore M. Berry Distinguished Lecture, which focuses on public policy and human rights, is the first major ongoing event conducted by the center. Berry, Cincinnati's mayor from 1972-75, is the former head of the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.

The inaugural lecture will be delivered Friday, Sept. 25 in Cincinnati by Leon A. Higginbotham Jr., retired chief justice of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center expects to open a museum and educational facility in Cincinnati in 2003.

This is the largest charitable donation by 125-year-old Cincinnati Bell and the first major gift by Convergys, a new company comprised of two former Cincinnati Bell subsidiaries.