Gerald Torres, JD, Bryant Smith Chair in Law, Professor, School of Law, University of Texas—Austin, Texas

Professor Torres is former president of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). A leading figure in critical race theory, Torres is also an expert in agricultural and environmental law. He came to University of Texas Law in 1993 after teaching at The University of Minnesota Law School, where he also served as associate dean. Torres has served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as counsel to then U.S. attorney general Janet Reno.

His latest book, The Miner's Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2002) with Harvard law professor Lani Guinier, was described by Publisher's Weekly as "one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years." Torres' many articles include "Translation and Stories" (Harvard Law Review, 2002), "Who Owns the Sky?" (Pace Law Review, 2001) (Garrison Lecture), "Taking and Giving: Police Power, Public Value, and Private Right" (Environmental Law, 1996), and "Translating Yonnondio by Precedent and Evidence: The Mashpee Indian Case" (Duke Law Journal, 1990).

Torres has served on the board of the Environmental Law Institute, the National Petroleum Council and on EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute. Torres was honored with the 2004 Legal Service Award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) for his work to advance the legal rights of Latinos. He has been a visiting professor at Harvard and Stanford law schools.

Informal dialog and book signing with Professor Torres will take place following the keynote address (2:00–3:00 p.m.).

Angela Davis, Ph.D.,
Professor, History of Consciousness,
an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program,
and Professor of Feminist Studies,
University of California—Santa Cruz, California

Through her activism and her scholarship over the last decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in our nation’s quest for social justice. Her work as an educator—both at the university level and in the larger public sphere—has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender equality.

Davis is especially concerned with the general tendency to devote more resources and attention to the prison system than to educational institutions, as well as the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. Davis is the author of eight books and has lectured extensively throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and South America.

Informal dialog and book signing with Professor Davis will take place following the keynote address (10:00–11:00 a.m.).

Manning Marable, Ph.D.
Educator, Author, Journalist, One of America’s most influential and widely read scholars

Manning Marable is one of America’s most influential and widely read scholars. Since 1993, he has been Professor of Public Affairs, Political Science, and History at Columbia University where (1993-2003), he was founding director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies. Under his leadership, the Institute has become one of the nation’s most prestigious centers of scholarship on the black American experience. Before Columbia University, he was the founding director of Colgate University’s Africana and Latin American Studies Program (1983-1987), Chair of the Black Studies Department at Ohio State University (1987-1989), and Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1989-1993).

A prolific author, Marable has written over 275 articles in academic journals and edited volumes. His most recent books prominently include Living Black History: How Reimaging the African-American Past Can Remake America’s Racial Future, Race and Labor in the New US Economy (as editor with Immanuel Neww and Joseph Williams), and Racializing Justice: Disenfranchising Lives (as editor with Keesha Middlemass and Ian Steinberg).

Also, he and Myrlie Evers-Williams, wife of slain civil rights worker Medgar Evers, have edited The Autobiography of Medgar Evers, a reconstruction of his hero’s life through his speeches, letters, and papers. Marable is currently at work on Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention and, as editor with Kristen Clarke Avery, on Seeking Higher Ground: The Hurricane Katrina Crisis, Race and Public Policy. Marable is a national leader in the development of web-based, educational resources on the African-American experience. With Columbia’s Center for New Media Teaching and Malcolm X, respectively; he directed the production of two E-courses, a multimedia version of Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk (2001), and a massive multimedia version of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. For almost three decades, Marable has written a political commentary series, Along the Color Line that appears in over four hundred newspapers and journals worldwide. He is regularly featured in national and international media. He donates much of his time fundraising and speaking on behalf of prisoners’ rights, labor civil rights, faith-based institutions, and other social justice organizations.

Juan Williams
National Political Correspondent/Author

Juan Williams is one of America’s leading political writers and thinkers. He is the senior correspondent for NPR, a political analyst for Fox Television, and a regular panelist for FoxNews Sunday. In addition to prize-winning columns and editorial writing for The Washington Post, he has also authored six books. With the release of his sixth book, Enough—The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America- and What We Can Do About It, Williams has created a national furor and ignited debate everywhere with his point blank analysis of black leadership in this country. He combines a bold, perceptive, solution-based look at African American life, culture, and politics with an impassioned clarion call to do the right thing now and not lose sight of the true values of the Civil Rights Movement.

His previous book, My Soul Looks Back in Wonder, presents stirring, eyewitness accounts of history-making movements for Black, Hispanic, and Women’s rights, as well as other successes at creating a better America. Previous books include the nonfiction bestseller, Eyes on the Prize, and the critically acclaimed biography, Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, which The New York Times selected as a notable book of the year. Time magazine described American Revolutionary as a “magisterial” work of American history, and the book was reissued in 2004 with a new epilogue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision. His other books include I’ll Find a Way or Make One, A History of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and This Far By Faith, a history of the Black religious experience in America—which was accompanied by a six part PBS series.

As one of the nation’s most influential journalists, Williams is in constant contact with American political leaders from the President to members of Congress and the Supreme Court. His understanding of American history and his inside access to Washington politics gives him a unique and informed voice as an analyst of current events. In 2000, NPR selected Williams to host their afternoon talk show, “Talk of The Nation.” His daring perspectives on American politics, race, and culture are based on his historical understanding, political expertise, and knowledge of diversity. Prior to writing bestsellers, Williams was a political columnist and national correspondent for The Washington Post. He won several journalism awards for his writing and investigative reporting. He also won an Emmy Award for TV documentary writing. He was given widespread, critical acclaim for a series of documentaries including Politics-The New Black Power. His documentary on A. Phillip Randolph was featured on PBS. Because of Williams’ expertise, the President’s commission chose him as the keynote speaker at the start of the Smithsonian Museum’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision. Williams was also selected as the first speaker in 2003 for CSPAN’s nationally televised series, Students and Leaders.

Shawn Wong, Ph.D., Professor of English, and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Washington—Seattle, Washington

Shawn Wong’s second novel, American Knees, was published by Simon & Schuster in 1995 (Scribner paperback, 1996; reissued by University of Washington Press, 2005). The film version of American Knees, titled “Americanese” will be released in theaters nationally by IFC Films in 2008 (directed by Eric Byler). www.americanesethemovie.com

The film won several film festival awards and Wong served as Associate Producer. Wong’s first novel, Homebase (Reed and Cannon, 1979; reissued by Plume/NAL, 1990 and again by the University of Washington Press in 2008), won both the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the 15th Annual Governor’s Writers Day Award of Washington.

He is also the co-editor and editor of six Asian American and American multicultural literary anthologies including the pioneering anthology Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers (Howard University Press, 1974; reprinted in four different editions, most recently by Meridian in 1997) and, The Big Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Chinese America and Japanese America in Literature (Meridian/NAL, 1991), Literary Mosaic: Asian American Literature (HarperCollins, 1995), and Asian Diasporas: Cultures, Identities, Representations (Hong Kong University Press, 2004). He is co-editor of Before Columbus Foundation Fiction/Poetry Anthology: Selections from the American Book Awards, 1980-1990, two volumes of contemporary American multicultural poetry and fiction (W. W. Norton, 1992). Wong has also been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and a Rockefeller Foundation residency in Italy. He has won several writing awards including a first prize from the Society of Professional Journalists in the humor category in 1997. Wong was featured in the 1997 PBS documentary, “Shattering the Silences” and in the “Bill Moyers’ PBS documentary, “Becoming American: The Chinese Experience,” in 2003. Wong also serves as a consulting and contributing editor for Transtext(e)s /Transcultures, a joint French and Chinese journal published by Université Jean Moulin (Lyon, France) and University of Henan (China). Wong received his undergraduate degree in English at the University of California at Berkeley and a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. Wong has taught at several colleges and universities since 1972, including Mills College, University of California at Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University. He is currently Professor of English and Director of the University Honors Program at the University of Washington where he served as Chair of the Department of English from 1997 to 2002 and Director of the Creative Writing Program from 1995 to 1997. In addition, Wong has taught at the Universität Tübingen (Germany), Université Jean Moulin (Lyon), and at the University of Washington Rome Center (Italy).

Informal dialog and book signing with Professor Wong will take place following the keynote address (10:00–11:00 a.m.).

Morris Dees, Co-Founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, and Chief Trial Counsel

Combatant of Hate Groups and Domestic Terrorism. In 1967, lawyer Morris Dees had achieved extraordinary business and financial success with his book publishing company. The son of an Alabama farmer, he witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. He sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement but had not become actively involved. A night of soul searching at a snowed-in Cincinnati airport changed his life, inspiring Dees to leave his safe, business-as-usual world and undertake a new mission. "When my plane landed in Chicago, I was ready to take that step, to speak out for my black friends who were still 'disenfranchised' even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965," Dees wrote in his autobiography, A Season for Justice. "Little had changed in the South. Whites held the power and had no intention of voluntarily sharing it ... "I had made up my mind. I would sell the company as soon as possible and specialize in civil rights law," Dees said. "All the things in my life that had brought me to this point, all the pulls and tugs of my conscience, found a singular peace. It did not matter what my neighbors would think, or the judges, the bankers, or even my relatives." Out of this deeply personal moment grew the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In recognition of his publishing work and his efforts to encourage young people to become active in the business world, Dees was named one of the Ten Outstanding Young Men of America in 1966 by the U.S. Jaycees. After his epiphany in 1967, Dees began taking controversial cases that were highly unpopular in the white community. He filed suit to stop construction of a white university in an Alabama city that already had a predominantly black state college. In 1969, he filed suit to integrate the all-white Montgomery YMCA.

As he continued to pursue equal opportunities for minorities and the poor, Dees and his law partner Joseph J. Levin, Jr. saw the need for a non-profit organization dedicated to seeking justice. In 1971, the two lawyers and civil rights activist Julian Bond founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dees has received numerous awards in conjunction with his work at the Center. Trial Lawyers for Public Justice named him Trial Lawyer of the Year in 1987, and he received the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Award from the National Education Association in 1990. The American Bar Association gave him its Young Lawyers Distinguished Service Award, and the American Civil Liberties Union honored Dees with its Roger Baldwin Award.

Colleges and universities have recognized his accomplishments with honorary degrees, and the University of Alabama gave Dees its Humanitarian Award in 1993. In 2001, the National Education Association selected Dees as recipient of its Friend of Education Award, its highest award, for his "exemplary contributions to education, tolerance and civil rights."

Dees is chief trial counsel for the Southern Poverty Law Center. In his pioneering role at the Center, Dees participates in suing hate groups and mapping new directions for the Center. In addition to his work for the Center, Dees frequently speaks to colleges and universities, legal associations and other groups throughout the country. Over the years, he has been awarded at least 25 honorary degrees. Dees' autobiography, A Season For Justice, was published by Charles Scribner's Sons in 1991. The American Bar Association re-released it in 2001 as A Lawyer's Journey: The Morris Dees Story. His second book, Hate on Trial: The Case Against America's Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi, was published by Villard Books in 1993. It chronicles the trial and $12.5 million judgment against white supremacist Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance group for their responsibility in the beating death of a young black student in Portland, Oregon. His third book, Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat, exposes the danger posed by today's domestic terrorist groups. It was published by Harper Collins Publishers in 1996.

Informal dialog and book signing with Morris Dees will take place following the keynote address (5:00–6:00 p.m.).