2010 Plenary Speakers and Workshop Presenters
Jaribu Hill
Jaribu Hill is Founder and Executive Director of the Mississippi Workers’ Center for Human Rights. She is a human rights attorney and a veteran community organizer. Hill is an international human rights spokesperson and a frequent writer and commentator on human rights themes. Jaribu has served as key note speaker and cultural presenter at numerous international convenings, including the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa and the 1998 Human Rights Defenders’ Summit in Paris, France, in honor of the 50th Anniversary of the UDHR. At the Front Line Conference in Nantes, France in June 2007, Hill was the featured cultural artist, where she presented a musical and spoken word tribute to Rosa Parks, for whom the event was dedicated. Hill was resident poet and legal observer for the 2000 Women in War Crimes Tribunal in Tokyo, Japan. For this occasion, she penned the acclaimed poem: “Haunting Mirrors,” which was made part of the Tribunal’s final judgment. Recently, Jaribu was a principal commentator during the acclaimed documentary: Murder in Black and White, which aired on TV One cable. Jaribu is the coauthor of The Black College Guide and Knowledge is Power– A Know Your Rights Manual .
Jaribu is the first alum to receive the Dean’s Medal from CUNY Law School and is featured in a special issue of the law school’s magazine as one of the 25 most notable graduates.
Jaribu is the founding convener of the Southern Human Rights Conference (SHROC). She is the founder of the Fannie Lou Hamer Roundtable and the Mississippi Project. After Katrina, Jaribu and the Workers’ Center established the Southern Relief Fund/Witness Delegation, to provide support for victims of Katrina. As former director of the Southern Regional Office of the Center for Constitutional Rights, hill won an important judgment against the Christian Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Hill’s scholarly works are featured in numerous publications including: Black Scholar; National Black Law Journal; Southern University Law Review; Associated Trial Lawyers of America Faculty Series and Harvard Law School Civil Rights Journal. She is the recipient of numerous awards and accolades, including the coveted “Gloria” Award, the R. Jess Brown Award (the highest award given to a lawyer by Mississippi’s Magnolia Bar Assoc.). Hill serves as Municipal Judge for the City of Hollandale, Mississippi and is admitted to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Jaribu also is a singer, composer and recording artist and is currently working on a book of original poems to be published in 2011. She is a former member of the renown singing duo “Serious Bizness” and released her first solo CD in 2001.
Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles
Distinguished national speaker, pastor and civil rights leader, the reverend Samuel Billy Kyles is recognized as a both a participant in, and a valuable resource on, the Civil Rights Movement. An eyewitness to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Kyles is the last remaining person to have spent the final hour of Dr. King's life with him.
The Rev. Samuel "Billy" Kyles was born in Shelby, Mississippi, on September 26, 1934 to Ludie "Queen" Kyles and Rev. Joseph Henry Kyles. Young Kyles started preaching at the age of 17 and moved to Memphis in his mid twenties to lead the Monumental Baptist Church in 1959. Kyles quickly became a member of his local NAACP branch and joined 100 other pastors in the fight for racial equality and the desegregation of Memphis. He led protests in Memphis, which challenged the segregations of the local parks and local bus system which resulted in his arrest.
In 1968, Kyles helped form and lead an effort to gain community support for striking sanitation workers. After Memphis workers went on strike in February, protesting low wages and inhumane working conditions, the group looked to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to rally support and lead the workers' march. When the first march ended in violence, King decided there would be another peaceful march. Kyles, along with other Memphis ministers who had been organizing nightly rallies and raising money for the strike, planned a major rally to prepare for another big march. The rally was held at the Mason Temple on April 3, 1968. It was at this meeting that King gave his now famous "mountaintop" speech, foreshadowing his own assassination. The following day, Kyles was to host King for dinner at his home. Kyles went to the Lorraine Motel to pick up his dinner guest at 5 p.m. There, Kyles talked with Ralph Abernathy and King for an hour before leaving the motel for dinner at 6 p.m. As the two were leaving the motel, King was assassinated. Kyles and Abernathy spent the last hour of King's life with him in his hotel room. When Abernathy passed away in 1990, Kyles became the only living person to have been with King during the last hour of his life.
After the Civil Rights Movement, Kyles continued his involvement in the church and civil rights work. During the early 1970s, he became a founding member of the National Board of Operation Push and the executive director of Rainbow Push in Memphis, working with its founder, the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Kyles went on to be a regional organizer for Jackson's 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns. During the 1990s, Kyles was appointed by President Clinton to serve on the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad. In 1992, Kyles was recognized with the Tennessee Living Legend Award.
Kyles has appeared in several documentaries about the life and assassination of King and has toured the country, speaking about King's life and legacy. Kyles lives with his wife Aurelia; the couple has five children and five grandchildren.
Spirit Trickey-Rowan
Born and raised in northern Ontario, Canada, Spirit is definitely a product of an eclectic environment and has the personality to match. Drawing on traits from her parents, both heavily involved in civil rights, Spirit thrives herself on making a difference in the world and is very passionate about social justice.
Always on the go, Spirit moved to the Washington D.C. area for a couple of years after graduating from high school in Ottawa, Canada. She later moved with her mother to Little Rock, Arkansas, USA where she currently resides. Her mother, Minnijean Brown, was one of the Little Rock Nine that desegregated Central High School in Little Rock. Spirit finished her undergraduate work at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a B.A. in Mass Communications and a minor in journalism.
Spirit is currently enrolled at the Clinton School of Public Service, working on her Master's Degree. In addition to her schooling she is producing a documentary, "Mixed Messages," and she is touring with her award winning play, "One Ninth." The play tells Minnijean Brown's story from the perspective of a "regular teenager." The play incorporates the sites and sounds of the 50s and gives an insider's look at the desegregation of Central High.
Spirit is an accomplished artist and speaker and will be the Keynote Speaker at the Gandhi-King PeaceJam Slam youth conference.
Tim Wise
Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S., having spoken to over 300,000 people in 48 states, and on over 400 college campuses, including Harvard, Stanford, and the Law Schools at Yale, Columbia, and Vanderbilt. He has trained teachers as well as corporate, government, media, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.
In Summer 2005, Wise served as adjunct faculty at the Smith College School of Social Work, in Northampton, MA, where he co-taught a Master's level class on Racism in the United States. From 1999 to 2003, Wise served as an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute and in the early '90s was Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism, the largest of the many groups responsible for the political defeat of neo-Nazi, David Duke.
Wise’s most recent book is "Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity(City Lights)." He is also the author of Between Barack and a Hard Place: Challenging Racism, Privilege and Denial in the Age of Obama (City Lights) which explores the issues of race within the context of the Obama presidency, White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son (Soft Skull Press), Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White (Routledge) and collection of his essays, Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections from an Angry White Male (Soft Skull Press). [His books and the DVD of his Colorblind speech are available in the SpeakOut store.]
Wise received the 2002 National Youth Advocacy Coalition's Social Justice Impact Award in recognition of his contributions to the struggle for equity, as well as the 2001 British Diversity Award, for best feature column on race and diversity issues
Wise received his B.A. from Tulane University and antiracism training from the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, both in New Orleans.
More information on workshop presenters will be available soon. There is still time to submit your workshop proposal. Deadline is August 1 and more information can be found on the Call for Proposals page here.
