Thursday, June 22

Friday June 23

Saturday, June 24

Sunday, June 25

WINNING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS: BUILDING A NEW COMMUNITY OF CHOICE

The challenges of responding to renewed aggression around issues of choice while making reproductive rights more meaningful for all women demand a new way of organizing across previous boundaries. As longtime activists in the war over women's bodies, Sharon and Kathleen will share their deep experience and a historical perspective on the women's movement in stressing the need for multi-issue, multigenerational, multi-ethnic organizing to create a winning strategy at this critical time.

-Sharon Gary-Smith, Kathleen Saadat

THE NEW DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT AND THE STRUGGLE FOR VOTING RIGHTS

The long history of struggle around issues of voting rights in the United States is now being redefined in terms of an emerging pro-democracy movement. This plenary session will focus on understanding the context of recent challenges to U.S. democracy (including issues of minority disenfranchisement), while examining opportunities for democratic change on the state and federal level.

-Melissa Siebert and Dexter Wimbish of Democracy South and Stephanie Wilson of the Fannie Lou Hamer Project

DISMANTLING THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

The growing prison-industrial complex will only be dismantled through intensive organizing and activism. We'll discuss campaigns around the country for fighting the expansion of the prison-industrial complex and explore strategies for increasing activist engagement on this issue.

-Kevin Pranis, "Not with Our Money Campaign," Kate Rhee, New York Prison Moratorium Project and Brigette Sarabi, Western Prison Project

Evening Activities

Thursday, June 22

Friday June 23

Saturday, June 24

A DOCUMENTARY FILM
OUT: THE MAKING OF A REVOLUTIONARY

This film profile of longtime activist Laura Whitehorn examines five decades of struggle for freedom and justice. This documentary is as much an examination of tumultous moments in U.S. American political history as it is an in-depth look at a controversial figure in leftist organizing. Released in 1999 after 14 years in prison, Laura Whitehorn is a lesbian and artist working for the release of all political prisoners and an editor at a magazine for HIV-positive people.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Lillie P. Allen

Lillie P. Allen is the Founder/Executive Director of Be Present, Inc., a national grassroots organization, based in Atlanta, that is committed to building conscious and active partnerships in our diverse and changing world. Be Present, Inc., works to improve the economic, health, political, and social status of women and girls by developing their individual and collective leadership capacities. Be Present Inc. is committed to creating a world in which the value of women will be measured by their willingness and ability to forge strong, viable communities which are free from racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and ageism.

Lillie often draws on her extraordinary skills at creating open and meaningful dialogue among groups of people to effectively address the racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of oppression which shape peopleÕs lives. Her expertise in assisting individuals, institutions and agencies to examine themselves and the misinformation which is communicated in our culture provides a new framework for interacting and working cooperatively within the social change movement. She holds a Masters in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Public Health, where her educational concentration was in community organization and school and community education.

Lillie believes that "as activists, we must be willing to get beyond our rhetoric, political correctness, and strategies, and confront the misunderstandings and missteps that prevent realizing the effective social change movement we seek." Further, she challenges us to "look honestly Ð and do something different Ð about the lack of inclusion, diversity or non-traditional leadership in our organizationÕs and our movement. How can we ask of other groups what weÕre hard-pressed to demonstrate ourselves? It is not acceptable that we say that we ÔbelieveÕ in changing the systems around us but are unable to change ourselves; to struggle together against the "isms" and to model the empowerment that we expect from others."

BANQUET & KEYNOTE ADDRESS from Damu Smith

Delicious food and inspiring words from an awesome keynote speaker, Damu Smith.

DANCE PARTY

Prepare for some bootie shaking sound with live DJ's. Relax, have fun, get to know your fellow organizers and activists, experience the vibe, and tear up the dance floor.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:
Damu Smith

Damu Smith is a Campaigner with the Greenpeace Toxics Campaign. He is a dedicated activist, community leader, noted speaker and grass-roots organizer for social and environmental justice and racial equality. For the past decade, he has focused much of his work on working for environmental justice in poor and communities of color, and helped spearhead a successful campaign to stop Shintech from building the world's largest PVC production facility in the poor, polluted, and predominantly African-American community of Convent, Louisiana.

Damu served as Executive Director of the Washington Office on Africa during height of the anti-apartheid movement; as Associate Director of the Washington Bureau of the American Friends Service Committee; and, as a Program Consultant for the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice. He helped organize the first, groundbreaking People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit in D.C. in 1991, and coordinated the largest ever gathering of environmental justice activists--the 1992 Southern Community/Labor Conference on Environmental and Economic Justice held in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1999, he initiated the first-ever national strategy meeting among Black activists and policy experts working on environmental justice issues at the "National Emergency Gathering of Black Community Advocates for Environmental and Economic Justice", also held in New Orleans, Louisiana.