Brown v. Board of Education 50 Year Later:
Where are you today?
Conference
LeMoyne-Owen College, Memphis, TN
December 3-4, 2004

Contact: Judge D'Army Bailey, conference chairman
545-4022 (work)
327-5544 (home)

Civil Rights Gathering in Memphis to Answer Questions

In the 50 years since Brown v. Board of Education integrated schools, questions about racial equality linger that a two-day conference at LeMoyne-Owen College of nationally-known civil rights leaders, legal scholars, college professors and ministers will attempt to answer.

The conference is slated for December 3 from 3 to 8 p.m. and Dec. 4 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. The National Bar Association in Washington, D.C and its Memphis affiliate Ben F. Jones Chapter sponsor the conference.

Advocates of many philosophies of civil rights activism — black nationalists, public intellectuals, prominent attorneys, college professors and religious leaders — will be on the program. Speakers include Derrick Bell, professor of law at New York University; Claud Anderson, author and civic activist with The Harvest Institute; Jeffrey J. Johnson, vice president of the Hip Hop Summit Action Network, The Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the South Christian Leadership Conference and a friend to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; Connie Curry, author, filmmaker and the first white woman to sit on the board of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee; and Dr. William Strickland, professor at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.

"We will ask our distinguished speakers to direct their attention to the leading problem areaseconomic, political, family, education--facing African Americans since Brown v. Board of Education," said Judge D'Army Bailey, who has enjoyed a distinguished career as an activist, politician, attorney, writer and public servant. "We will determine what resources we have address those questions, and hopefully challenge our young people to be part of the solution to problems we discuss."

Speakers will include:

• Dr. Claud Anderson, author and civic activist, The Harvest Institute. Much in the news lately as the leader of a group pushing for a publicly funded Africa Town in Detroit, Anderson is widely recognized as a leader in helping America understand the importance of redevelopment and industrialization of African-American communities. He is the author of Black Labor, White Wealth: a Search for Power and Economic Justice and PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America, two respected books that set forth a national plan in the areas of education, economics and politics.

• Gerald D. Bantom, vice president of United Auto Workers. He is director of the UAW National Ford Department, representing UAW members at Ford, Visteon, Rouge Steel, Auto Alliance, and ZF Industries. Bantom previously served as director of UAW Region 1A, a post he was elected to in 1998. He has been a member of UAW Local 600 since 1964 when he went to work at the Specialty Foundry at Ford Motor Co.'s Rouge complex in Dearborn, Michigan. He also worked for the UAW National Community Action Program (CAP) Department. Bantom is a life member of the NAACP, and is a member of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

• Derrick Bell, professor of law, New York University. Bell's most noted scholarly works include Race, Racism and American Law and Faces at the Bottom of the Well: the Permanence of Racism. In 1971 he became the first African-American law professor to earn tenure at Harvard. Recognized as a man of principle, Bell relinquished his tenured status at Harvard Law School in 1992 in protest of the department's lack of racial and gender equity. Professor Bell will deliver the keynote address.

• Unita Blackwell, former mayor of Meyersville, a small town in the Delta in a mostly poor region Mississippi. She is the first African American female mayor in the state. A grassroots organizer, Ms. Blackwell won the 1992 McArthur Foundation Genius Award. "I'm proof that things can change," says Blackwell, a living legend who went from picking cotton to a leadership role in the civil rights movement. In 1984 she was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco.

• Dorothy Crook, director of Local 1733, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Memphis. She is also president of the Memphis chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

• Connie Curry, filmmaker and author. During her college years in the 1950s, she became involved in the U.S. National Student Association (NSA) and its work for integration. After studying abroad as a Fulbright scholar and doing graduate work at Columbia University she went to Atlanta to work for NSA in human relations and was the first white woman appointed to the executive committee of SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee). After leaving the National Student Association in 1964, she worked as a field representative for the Friends Service Committee until 1975 and then was Director of Human Services for the City of Atlanta until 1990. She earned a law degree in 1984. She is author of Silver Rights, which won the Lillian Smith Award and co-author with Aaron Henry of The Fire Ever Burning. Curry also made a documentary film, The Intolerable Burden, about the first Mississippi African-Americans to desegregate a white school.

• Jeffrey Johnson, vice president of Hip Hop Summit Action Network. A social activist, AME minister, public speaker and leadership trainer, Johnson is the new face of BET as "Cousin Jeff," Big Tigger's conscious cousin on Rap City. He was also actively involved in helping Hip Hop Team Vote.

• The Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He was one of the confidants of slain civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

• Howard Moore, attorney, Moore & Moore. Moore is a longtime legal advocate for civil rights. He is perhaps most noted as the attorney for Angela Davis during the "Free Angela" campaign of the early 1970s. He currently practices law in Oakland, Calif.

• William Strickland, professor, University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Strickland is an associate professor of history and African-American studies and a well-known expert on civil rights issues. He is also the director of the Collected Papers of W.E.B. Dubois, which are housed at the University of Massachusetts.

• Cliff Suggs, Workplace and Industry Education Specialist at the Institute for Industry Studies at Cornell University. He has over 30 years of experience in labor education, and was selected for a special U.S. State Department assignment to teach conflict resolution in South Africa. Immediately before joining the Cornell faculty in January 1999, Cliff worked for 21 years as a Commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. He was one of a handful of mediators entrusted to mediate age discrimination complaints under the 1975 Age Discrimination Act. Suggs has helped design and implement alternative dispute resolution systems for several governmental agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Health and Human Services (HHS), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Postal Service (USPS).

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

Friday, December 3
3:00 P.M. WELCOME Your Future is Rooted in Your Past
Dr. James Wingate, President, Lemoyne-Owen College

3:05 - 3:10 INTRODUCTION The Questions Left by Brown V. Board of Education
Dr. Randolph Meade Walker, director of African-American Studies at LeMoyne-Owen College

3:10 p.m. How Level is Your Playing Field: Are Blacks and Whites Equal Anywhere?
Derrick Bell, professor of law at New York University and author of Faces at the Bottom of the Well: the Permanence of Racism.

5:00 p.m. Are Blacks and Whites Social Equals?

The Rev. Will Campbell, author of Forty Acres at a Mule and described by his biographer as "the radical prophet of the South."

Connie Curry, filmmaker of The Intolerable Burden and author of Silver Rights

F. Mike Higginbotham, University of Baltimore professor of law and former chairperson of the Association of American Law Schools Committee on Recruitment and the Retention of Minority Faculty

6:00 p.m. RECEPTION

7:00 p.m. Are Blacks and Whites Political Equals?
Unita Blackwell, former Mayor of Mayersville, Ms. and McArthur Foundation Award Winner

7:30 p.m. Is It Hip to Struggle for Equality — That's so Sixties?
Jeffrey Johnson, vice president of Hip Hop Summit Action Network, and "Cousin Jeff" on BET

Saturday, December 4

9:00 a.m. Are Blacks and White Equally Employed, Equally Paid?

Cliff Suggs, Workplace and Industry Education Specialist at the Institute for Industry Studies at Cornell University.

Gerald Bantom, Vice President, United Auto Workers in Detroit

Dorothy Crook, director of Local 1733, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees in Memphis

10:00 a.m. Money is Power: Where's Yours?
Claud Anderson, civil activist at The Harvest Institute and author of "PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America."

12:00 p.m. Are You Gonna Lie Down or Stand Up?
An Open Forum with Discussion Leaders:

Jeffrey Johnson, vice president of Hip Hop Summit Action Network

Howard Moore, civil rights attorney from Oakland, Calif. and known as the lawyer for radical Angela Davis

Dr. William Strickland, University of Massachusetts-Amherst associate professor of history and African-American Studies

1:30 p.m. Is the Prize Worth Your Time? Rev. Joseph Lowery, former president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Conference sponsored by the National Bar Association, Washington D.C.

Judge D'Army Bailey, Conference Chairman
Prince Chambliss, Conference Coordinator

Copyright © 2004
Last Modified: November 24, 2004.
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