Panelist: Dorothy Cotton

From 1960 to 1968, Dorothy Cotton was the Education Director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). As the Education Director, she holds the distinction of being the highest ranking woman to have served alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the SCLC. In that capacity, she worked closely with Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, directing the Citizenship Education Program (CEP). The now famous CEP was designed to train and empower disenfranchised citizens while developing local leadership in the deep South and promoting nonviolent social change. She later served as the Vice President for Field Operations for the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia where she was a leader and senior trainer for the Center in areas of nonviolence and empowerment for leadership.

 Ms. Cotton continued at the SCLC for three years after Dr. King’s assassination and later became Southern Regional Director for ACTION, the federal agency for volunteer programs under the Carter administration.  She was Vice-President for Field Operations at the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Non-Violent Change.  From 1982 to 1991, she was Director of Student Activities at Cornell University. She later founded her own consulting company, Dorothy Cotton & Associates, conducting seminars on leadership development, individual empowerment and social change. She is also one of the founding members of the National Citizenship School, devoted to teaching people how to create publicly accountable institutions that reflect high democratic ideals and enhance the capacity to live a meaningful life. Among her many awards, Ms. Cotton has received three honorary doctorate degrees.

 Ms. Cotton’s lifework – based on the philosophy and practices of nonviolence, reconciliation and restoration, and grassroots leadership development – offers valuable models for human rights education, practice, and leadership.

Panelist: Clarence B. Jones

Clarence B. Jones was a draft speechwriter and legal counsel for Martin Luther King, Jr. His work in the civil rights movement dramatically impacted the course of American history, and he has received numerous state and national awards recognizing his significant contributions to American society. Mr. Jones assisted Dr. King in drafting the “I Have a Dream” speech; he also smuggled out the fragments of newspaper and toilet paper from Dr. King’s cell that later became the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, one of the seminal documents in American history. Mr. Jones became the first African-American partner in a Wall Street investment banking member firm of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), was selected twice by Fortune Magazine as "A Business Man of The Month," and has founded several corporate and media-related ventures.

 He continues to be a tireless and vociferous advocate for civil rights and economic justice.

Moderator: Clayborne Carson

During his undergraduate years at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Dr. Carson was a participant in and observer of African-American political movements. Selected in 1985 by the late Mrs. Coretta Scott King to edit and publish the papers of her late husband, Dr. Carson has devoted most his professional life to studying Martin Luther King, Jr., and the movements King inspired. Under his direction, the King Papers Project has produced six volumes of a definitive, comprehensive edition of King's speeches, sermons, correspondence, publications, and unpublished writings. This project is now a component of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute that Dr. Carson founded at Stanford University in 2005.

Dr. Carson has authored and edited more than a dozen books, including The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. He has spoken about Dr. King and his legacy throughout the world and has appeared on numerous radio and television programs. Dr. King has also taken his play, Passages of Martin Luther King, to audiences nationwide and to Beijing, East Jerusalem and the West Bank. He has served as historical advisor for Eyes on the Prize and other documentary films, and collaborated on the design for the King National Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Clayborne Carson’s latest work is “Martin’s Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.”, published by Palgrave Macmillan.

Dance

“We Have a Dream” dance performance choreographed by Mika Lemoine of Destiny Arts Center, Oakland

 Production of “We Have a Dream” is graciously supported by the Words That Made America and Art IS Education programs at the Alameda County Office of Education.

Music

Gospel music by "Sister Lee", original members of the Edwin Hawkins Singers. With Greg Pickens (piano), Caleb Mitchell (drums), and Michael Graham (bass).

Sister Lee is known for spirited and uplifting melodies, singing the Gospel and inspirational messages of hope and praise. Natives of the San Francisco Bay Area and daughters of Pastor Arvander Lee and the late Esther R. Lee, their musical journey began at an early age, and they have continued to minister in song for 35+ years. Both were original members of the Edwin Hawkins Singers in 1966 and recorded on the album Let Us Go In The House of the Lord, featuring the beloved song “Oh Happy Day. 

Glenn T. Eskew

Professor of History
Georgia State University

Birmingham, Alabama – spring, 1963: Bull Connor’s use of police dogs and fire hoses to suppress nonviolent civil rights demonstrators led by the Reverends Fred Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King resulted in global outrage. Ultimately, President John F. Kennedy and the federal government were forced to intervene on behalf of racial change, as signified in the ratification by the U. S. Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a watershed moment that has opened up the American system to all regardless of race, religion, gender, sexual preference, or disability.

Read more about Dr. Eskew's work.

Glenn Eskew's appearance at the conference is graciously supported by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History

Carlos Muñoz, Jr.

Professor Emeritus and Chancellor's
Distinguished Public Scholar
U.C. Berkeley

The history of civil rights struggles in the United States, as taught in the public schools, has excluded the 1960’s Chicano Civil Rights Movement. It is not even mentioned as a footnote. The Southern Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has been the focus of that history. Dr. Munoz's presentation will underscore that Mexican Americans share the same long history with African Americans of fighting for racial justice.

Read more about Dr. Munoz's life work.

Dr. Carlos Munoz, Jr.'s appearance at the conference is graciously supported by the Words That Made America TAH project at the Alameda County Office of Education

Stan Yogi

Author

In California, the nature of “movement” was different. Rather than it being focused on a single group of people fighting for a single cause (voting rights), it was comprised of people from many different groups, with many different causes set in different historical contexts, who at times found themselves at cross purposes but, over time, came to find common cause in the struggle for social justice.

Veteran civil rights attorney Eva Paterson is President of the Equal Justice Society, which she co-founded in 2000. EJS is a national civil rights legal organization working to fully restore the constitutional protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. Eva co-chairs the California Civil Rights Coalition, which she co-founded and previously chaired for 18 years. She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law and Northwestern University, where she received her B.A. in political science and was elected the first African American student body president.

Sofia Campos is the national chair of United We Dream, a network of youth-led immigrant organizations around the country striving to achieve equal access to higher education for all people, regardless of immigration status. UWD aims to address the inequities and obstacles faced by immigrant youth and to develop a sustainable, grassroots movement. Sofia is a UCLA graduate, currently works with the Dream Resource Center of the UCLA Labor Center, and has been featured on Diane Sawyer and Larry King.

Catherine Eusebio is a graduate of UC Berkeley and participated in Dream Summer, the first national internship and scholarship program for Dream Act students. She is currently working with Asian Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy to launch API Dream Summer, a program designed to build support for Asian Pacific Islander Dream Act students.

The Bay Area Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement have a website, www.crmvet.org, where the history of the Southern freedom movement can be found, including personal stories, photographs, a timeline and historical documents. The Vets also provide speakers for classrooms; visit the website for details.

Veterans from the southern freedom movement including those who were on the freedom rides or who worked with…

• The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
• The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
• The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
• The 1964 COFO (Council of Federated Organizations) Mississippi Summer Project (“Mississippi Freedom Summer”)
• The 1965 SCOPE (Summer Community Organization and Political Education) Project 

SNCC
Wazir Peacock
Jean Wiley
Jimmy Rogers
Phil Hutchings
Cathy Cade

CORE
Mimi Real

SCLC
Bruce Hartford

Freedom Summer 1964
Chude Pam Parker Allen

SCOPE 1965
Maria Gitin
Sherie Labedis

Guy Nixon (Redcorn)

Western Historian

A presentation about the little known history of Native Californians before the Gold Rush of 1849 and one Nissenan leaders lasting triumph against the odds. How world events, and climactic changes affected the Native people of North America as well as the rarely mentioned slave trade in Native Americans, legal in the United States of America until 1911.