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The Elders
REV. JAMES LAWSON, JR. - served 14 months in prison as a conscientious objector to the Korean War draft in 1951. After studying Gandhi’s principles of civil disobedience in India, he went on to train the Freedom Riders and other future leaders of the Civil Rights Movement as director of the Congress for Racial Equality.
DR. VINCENT G. HARDING - Native New Yorker, theologian, civil rights activist, and author of nine books including Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of the Movement. He was an educator and activist in the Southern Freedom Movement and continues to advise churches, schools, prisons and community groups.
REV. PHILLIP LAWSON - is a United Methodist Pastor (ret) whose life journey is marked by his advocacy and actions for justice and peace. Throughout his ministries as a community organizer Phil has been engaged in issues of immigrants, human and sexual freedom, a just wage for low wage workers and economic development.
DOLORES HUERTA - Cofounder of the United Farm Workers with Cesar Chavez, Huerta directed the famous national grape boycott that resulted in the entire California table grape industry signing a contract in 1970. Never deterred from the struggle, she has been arrested 22 times and was beaten by police when protesting George H.W. Bush.
DR. BERNICE JOHNSON REAGON - Singer, author, educator, and Civil Rights Activist in the Freedom Singers organized by the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, Reagon has recorded several albums including Lest We Forget, Vol. 3: Sing for Freedom and written on African American culture and history including We Who Believe In Freedom.
DR. GRACE LEE BOGGS - 96, activist and writer. "These are the times to grow our souls'" is the title of the first chapter of her latest book, The Next American Revolution..
DR. GWENDOLYN ZOHARAH SIMMONS - Activist in the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee in the ‘60s, Simmons is also a student of Islam and Sufism and was staff for 23 years with American Friends Service Committee. She currently teaches subjects such as Race, Religion, and Rebellion.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN - As the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, Edelman worked with the NAACP to defend activists in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. She went on to found the Children’s Defense Fund and advocate against child poverty.
RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW - has authored many works including “A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority,” a manifesto supporting military draft resisters. He is an ardent peace activist in the Israel-Palestine conflict and has been awarded by numerous organizations, including the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation.
REV. DR. GEORGE (TINK) TINKER - is a prominent American Indian activst, theologian, and author of works such as Spirit and Resistance: Political Theology and American Indian Liberation. He has been a critic of Western intellectualism and economic, political, religious, and social systems.
REV. JOHN FIFE - is the co-founder of the Sanctuary Movement which protected Central American refugees from deportation in the 1980's. He is a founding volunteer with No More Deaths which provides humanitarian aid to migrants in the Sonoran Desert borderlands.
REV. MEL WHITE - is the Co-Founder of Soulforce, volunteers trained in relentless nonviolent resistance determined to end religious policies and practices that lead to intolerance and exclusion of LGBT people.
REV. NELSON JOHNSON - is founder of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC and a longtime advocate for poor people. He led the 1979 anti-Klan march in which neo-Nazis and Klan members, with police collusion, murdered 5 protesters on November 3, 1979, and has been a leader in the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation process, designed to seek truth and reconciliation around those events.
JOYCE HOBSON JOHNSON - Active in civil rights struggles since the ‘60s, Johnson is Director of the Jubilee Institute of the Beloved Community Center in Greensboro, NC, which provides support, social and political analysis, and training for the broad-based progressive movement. She was also an important figure in the Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation efforts.
SISTER JOAN D. CHITTISTER, O.S.B - is a member of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, where she served as prioress for 12 years. She writes a web column for the National Catholic Reporter, "From Where I Stand" and speaks on women in the church and society, human rights,and peace and justice in the areas of war and poverty and religious life and spirituality.
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