Featured Speakers
Tim Wise
Wise’s anti-racism work traces back to his days as a college activist in the 1980s, fighting for divestment from (and economic sanctions against) apartheid South Africa. After graduation, he threw himself into social justice efforts full-time, as a Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized in the early 1990s to defeat the political candidacies of white supremacist and former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. From there, he became a community organizer in New Orleans’ public housing, and a policy analyst for a children’s advocacy group focused on combatting poverty and economic inequity. He has served as an adjunct professor at the Smith College School of Social Work, in Northampton, MA., and from 1999-2003 was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute in Nashville, TN.
Charlene Carruthers
Charlene A. Carruthers is a Black, queer feminist community organizer and writer with over 10 years of experience in racial justice, feminist and youth leadership development movement work. She currently serves as the national director of the Black Youth Project 100 (BYP100), an activist member-led organization of Black 18-35 year olds dedicated to creating justice and freedom for all Black people. She was recently named to The Root's annual list of 100 African Americans, ages 25 to 45, who are responsible for the year’s most significant moments, movements and ideas. The Root 100, noted, "Charlene Carruthers has a quiet but powerful spirit that gets the job done; a new-jack Ella Baker on the scene. As national director of the Black Youth Project 100, Carruthers has consciously led an organization made up of African-American students, professionals and workers, queer and cis, ages 18-35, whose call to action includes the end of black criminalization, restorative-justice practices, quality public schools and living wages." Charlene was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago where she currently resides and continues to lead and partake in social justice movements.
Muhibb Dyer
Muhibb Dyer has performed all over the U.S. and in 2002 was a finalist at the National Poetry Slam (the nation’s top spoken word competition). Other notable performances include: Def Poetry Jam-Local Finals, MATC Dinner with Geronimo Pratt, Featured in Sing Your Song Documentary of the life of Harry Belafonte, Operation Push - featuring the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Vote or Die Rally - featuring P. Diddy, C-Span appearance at 2004 Democratic Convention. Muhibb Dyer is co-founder of Flood the Hood with Dreams. Wanting to live and teach the messages he brings, Muhibb began a successful campaign to bring the art of the spoken word to inner city youth. He has conducted several seminars and conflict resolution workshops in the Milwaukee Public School system encouraging youth to take responsibility for their futures. Mr. Dyer has also made numerous guest appearances as a motivational speaker for graduation commencement ceremonies as well as other events. A native Milwaukeean, Muhibb began counseling and mentoring youth through various programs while he was still in high school himself.