KEYNOTE SPEAKERS

OPENING PLENARY
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Rev. Dr. Lemuel Thuston

After 14 years in Texas pastoring and teaching, Rev. Thuston was assigned to The Historic Boone Tabernacle Church in Kansas City, Missouri. For the last six years he has served this blossoming renewal parish in the urban core of the Midwest metropolis. Rev. Thuston is currently host of the weekly BETTER TOMORROW BEGINNING TODAY telecast. Rev. Thuston is also completing two years as associate professor in Urban Studies at North Central University in Minneapolis, Minn. click here for more…

FOUNDING MEMBERS LUNCHEON
Friday, November 20th
Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr.

The Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr., Founder and President of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, is one of America's foremost civil rights, religious and political figures. Over the past forty years he has played a pivotal role in virtually every movement for empowerment, peace, civil rights, gender equality, and economic and social justice.

Reverend Jackson has been called the "Conscience of the Nation" and "the Great Unifier," challenging America to be inclusive and to establish just and human priorities for the benefit of all. He is known for bringing people together in common ground across lines of race, culture, class, gender and belief. click here for more…

SPECIAL SESSION
Thursday, November 19th
Dr. Arne Duncan
U.S. Secretary of Education

Arne Duncan was nominated to be secretary of education by President-elect Barack Obama and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2009.

In his confirmation hearings, Duncan called education "the most pressing issue facing America," adding that "preparing young people for success in life is not just a moral obligation of society" but also an "economic imperative." "Education is also the civil rights issue of our generation," he said, "the only sure path out of poverty and the only way to achieve a more equal and just society." click here for more…

ANNUAL AWARDS BANQUET
Saturday, November 21st
Congressman André Carson (IN)


Invited