Individuals Interviewed for the Veterans of Hope Project Video Archive,
1997- 2004

Rev. Dr. Prathia Hall was a veteran of the courageous grassroots organizing of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the 1960s. Named one of the outstanding African American preachers of the 20th century by Ebony Magazine, Dr. Hall was a professor of Christian Ethics at the Boston University School of Theology. She died in the summer of 2003.

• Sojourners
  Sojourners is a Christian ministry whose mission is to proclaim the biblical call to integrate spiritual renewal and social justice. This page contains Prathia Hall-Wynn’s article that is published in Sojourners magazine
  Link
• The Other Side
  The Other Side magazine upholds a Christian vision that nurtures those who thirst for deeper spiritual rooting, long for justice and peace, and works towards a transformed world. This page contains an article by Prathia Hall-Wynn.
  Link
• This Far By Faith
  This is a PBS series that examines the African -American religious experience through the last three centuries. The Rev. Prathia Hall-Wynn is featured in the Episode: Witnesses to Faith. Link

Dr. Vincent Gordon Harding is a veteran scholar and peace and justice activist. Harding was the first director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center and the founder/director of the Institute of the Black World, both in Atlanta, Georgia. He is currently professor of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology and co-founder of the Veterans of Hope Project.

• The King Center (Atlanta, GA)
  The King’s Center seeks to create a beloved community described by Martin Luther Kings, Jr., in his speeches, sermons, and writings. It embraces King’s vision of a world where nonviolence is way of life. Dr. Harding was the first director of the Center. Link
• Mennonite Mission Network
  Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, supports ministries in more than 50 countries. Vincent and Rosemarie Harding were the founders of the Mennonite House in Atlanta, GA. The Hardings were speakers at the Mennonite Convention held in Atlanta, GA in 2003. They are featured in this page. Link
• Iliff School of Theology
  Dr Vincent Harding is professor emeritus of Religion and Social Transformation at the Iliff School of Theology and co-founder of the Veterans of Hope Project. A brief biography is given on this page. Link

Rev. Dr. Archie Hargraves was a distinguished urban minister and church leader who served America’s cities for more than half a century. In 1948 he co-founded the East Harlem Protestant Parish, called by some “the most significant experiment in American Protestantism in the 20th Century.” He also co-founded The West Side Organization which is still considered a prototype for community-based organizations in this nation, and in the 1970s he was named one of the “Ten Churchmen of the Decade.” Hargraves also served as president of Shaw University. He passed in January 2003.

• Shaw University
  Shaw University, founded in 1865, is the oldest historically black college of the South. The university is a private, co-educational, liberal arts university affiliated with the Baptist Church. The University awards degrees at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Rev. Dr. Hargraves served as president of this university. Link

Dr. Susannah Heschel holds the Eli Black chair in Jewish Studies at Dartmouth College where she is also associate professor of religion. Dr. Heschel is a co-chair of the Tikkun community and she writes and lectures on Jewish feminist theology, Jewish history and issues of multiculturalism and progressive politics. She is also a scholar of the life and work of her father, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, one of the great prophetic voices of the twentieth century.
This is Susannah Heschel's homepage at Dartmouth College. Link

• The Heschel School
  The Abraham Joshua Heschel School is an independent school named in memory of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Dr. Susannah Heschel’s father. The School is dedicated to the values and principles that characterized Rabbi Heschel’s life: integrity, intellectual exploration, traditional Jewish study, justice, righteousness, human dignity, and holiness. Link
• Tikkun Magazine
  Tikkun is a bimonthly magazine featuring Jewish and interfaith critiques of politics, culture and society. Susannah Hescel is co-chair of the board of directors. Link

Dr. Robert Hill, the world’s leading scholar on Marcus Garvey and the UNIA movement, is director and editor-in-chief of the Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers Project at UCLA. A native of Jamaica, Hill is author of numerous essays and books, and since 1983 has edited ten volumes of the Marcus Garvey and UNIA papers, published by the University of California Press. Hill was executive consultant to the recent PBS documentary on Marcus Garvey Look for Me in the Whirlwind.

• The Marcus Garvey and United Negro Improvement Association Papers Project: A Research Project of the James S. Coleman African Studies Center at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). The project was established by Robert Hill who is also the director and editor-in -chief of this project. Link

Ms. Dolores Huerta was co-founder, with Cesar Chavez, of United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Huerta has worked for over five decades as a leader in the movement to secure basic rights for the nation’s agricultural workers. She was director of the UFW’s national grape boycott in the 1970s and was instrumental in securing unemployment benefits, collective bargaining rights and improved wages and working conditions for farmworkers. Currently she continues her work as a master organizer, lobbyist and spokesperson for the rights of women, farmworkers and other disenfranchised people.

• United Farm Workers
  Dolores C. Huerta is the co-founder and First Vice President Emeritus of the United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO ("UFW"). The organization seeks to promote justice for farm workers. Link
• The Glass Ceiling Biographies - Dolores Huerta
  This website contains a good biography of Huerta that demonstrates how her early life served as a foundation for her later activism. Link
• The Womenshistory Website
  The website examines the history of women who have made a significant difference in the world. Dolores Huerta is one of the women featured on this site. Link

Ms. Marion Jackson was among the founders and organizers of the Albany Movement – the major civil rights organization in southwest Georgia in the 1960s. A native of Valdosta, Georgia, Ms. Jackson is a leader in the national Baha’i religious community. She is also a lawyer who currently works as an arbitrator and mediator in the courts of her home state.

• The Baha'i Faith
  This religious community advocates for spiritual solutions based on the teachings of Baha’u’llah on issues such as the elimination of all forms of prejudice with emphasis on race unity, the equality of women and men , the spiritual education of children, the importance of family cohesion and the establishment of world peace. Ms. Marion Jackson is a member of the Baha’i religious community. Link
• Albany Civil Rights Museum at Old Mt. Zion Church, Albany, GA
  The mission of the Mt. Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum is to commemorate the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Albany and southwest Georgia so that it serves as an educational resource for the community, the nation, and the world. Ms Jackson was among the founders and organizers of the Albany Civil Rights Movement that is mentioned in this page. Link

Rev. Nelson Johnson was a leader in the student movement of the late 1960s. A master organizer and community builder, Rev. Johnson has worked for many years on issues of homelessness, poverty and disenfranchisement in Greensboro, North Carolina and nationally. During the Black Consciousness movement of the 1970s, he co-founded Malcolm X Liberation University. Johnson is currently pastor of Greensboro’s Faith Community Church and executive director of The Beloved Community Center where he continues to advocate for the rights of poor people.

• The Beloved Community Center of Greensboro Inc.
  The Beloved Community is a Village Concept where family, social, political, religious, educational and economic relations affirm the dignity, worth and potential of everyone. Rev. Nelson Johnson is the Executive Director of the Center. Link
• The Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project
  The Greensboro Truth and Community Reconciliation Project is a broad community-based initiative that seeks to help Greensboro create a brighter future by earnestly engaging its past. Rev. Johnson was instrumental in helping to create the project. Link

Ms. Carol King is a Baptist lay leader, an educator and organizer. She was a leader in the Albany Movement and director of Head Start of Southwest Georgia -- one of the first networks of publicly funded daycare centers for African American children in the state. Ms. King is the sister-in-law of Ms. Marion Jackson and the widow of Chevene (C.B.) King, the first African American to run for governor of the state of Georgia.

• Albany Civil Rights Museum at Old Mt. Zion Church, Albany, GA
  The mission of the Mt. Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum is to commemorate the 1960s Civil Rights Movement in Albany and southwest Georgia so that it serves as an educational resource for the community, the nation, and the world. Ms. King and her husband Chevene (C.B.) King were involved in the Albany Civil Rights Movement mentioned in this page. Link

Rev. Edwin King, a native white southerner, Rev. King worked with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in its voter registration and citizenship education drives in the 1960s. An ordained United Methodist minister, King was known as a creative, and sometimes dramatic, organizer of the campaign to integrate churches in Jackson, Mississippi. He was also a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of Mississippi in 1964 on the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party ticket. Currently, King is an associate professor in the School of Health Professions at the University of Mississippi.

• The School of Health Related Professions is located at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, Mississippi.
  Edwin King is associate Professor at this school. Link
• The Anne Romaine Inventory
  Several interviews with Ed King are part of the Anne Romaine Papers collection of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill library Archives. An inventory of the collection is found at this site. Link

Rev. James Lawson is former pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles. One of the freedom movement’s earliest teachers of non-violence, Lawson was a conscientious objector during the Korean War. An organizer in the south for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Lawson was a mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. and in 1968 invited King to Memphis, Tennessee to march with the garbage workers -- during which time King was killed. Lawson currently continues his religiously-grounded activism for human rights and democratic social change from his base in California.

• Fellowship of Reconciliation FOR -Peace Justice and Nonviolence
  This is an interfaith organization that is committed to active nonviolence as a personally transforming way of life as well as a means of radical social change. Rev. James Lawson was one of the speakers at the organization’s 90th anniversary national conference.
  Link
• Potentials Video Series
  Rev James Lawson Jr. is featured in volume 3 of the video series Potentials: Envisioning the New Millennium. In this episode, he explores the interconnectedness of all people, the renewal of democracy and why it is important to carry positive expectancy of what the world can be. Link
• This Far by Faith
  This is a PBS series that examines the African -American religious experience through the last three centuries. The Rev. James M. Lawson is featured in the Episode: Witnesses to Faith. Link
• Spartacus Education
  This website contains online educational resources. The Rev. James M. Lawson’s biography is featured in the program Education on the Internet and Teaching History Online. Link

Dr. Charles H. Long is the pre-eminent scholar of African American religious history in the United States. Dr. Long has served on the faculties at the University of Chicago, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Syracuse University and, most recently, the University of California at Santa Barbara where he is professor emeritus. A colleague and student of Mircea Eliade, Long is a major philosophical and cultural voice reflecting on the deep impact of colonialism on multiracial societies in the modern era. He is author of several books including, Significations, his collected essays.

• The Religion and the Arts Initiative
  The Religion and the Arts Initiative is based at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University and encourages the study of religion through the arts. It also seeks to address the ways in which the study of religion is critically important to museums as they wrestle with the politics of display, interpretation, and the specialized care of religious artifacts.  Dr. Charles Long is featured on this page. Link

Dr. Maria Guajardo Lucero, is an education activist and advocate for the rights of children and families. Former director of several non-profit organizations, Dr. Guajardo Lucero has created many innovative programs to engage parents and communities in educational and cultural advocacy. She is currently Executive Director of the Mayor's Office for Education and Children in Denver, Colorado. She is also a national leader in the Soka-Gakkai International Buddhist Fellowship.

• The Mayor's Office for Education and Children
  The Mayor's Office for Education and Children is committed to helping Denver children grow up with the strengths, knowledge, and skills necessary to become confident and successful adults. The focus is on the first two decades of life, from infancy to young adulthood. Established in 1995, the Office advocates for the children, youth, and families of Denver and serves as the city's liaison to Denver Public Schools. Maria Guajardo Lucero is currently executive director of the Mayor’s Office for Education and Children in Denver. Link
• Assets for Colorado Youth (ACY)
  Assets for Colorado Youth provides innovation, best practices, and leadership in creating positive social change throughout Colorado by supporting efforts to build developmental assets in youth. Dr. Maria Guajardo Lucero is a former Executive Director of ACY. Link
• Soka Gakkai International (SGI)-USA
  Soka Gakkai International (SGI)-USA is an American Buddhist association that promotes world peace and individual happiness based on the teachings of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism. Members reflect a cross section of the diverse American society, representing a broad range of ethnic and social backgrounds. Dr. Maria Guajardo Lucero is a national leader of the SGI Buddhist international Fellowship. Link

Mr. and Mrs. Staughton and Alice Lynd are a married couple who have worked together for nonviolent social change for over five decades. Staughton, an American historian, was on the faculty at Spelman College in the 1960s and the couple was invited by SNCC to help create the Freedom School curriculum for the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer project. Both Lynds are activist lawyers and have been involved in a variety of grassroots peace and justice movements.

• Z magazine
  This is an independent monthly print periodical on politics, cultural, social and economic life in the US. This page of the magazine's site features Daniel Burton-Rose’s interview with Staughton and Alice Lynd. Link
• Resist Inc.
  Resist is activist foundation that strives for social change and works against injustice. It is a grant maker for groups defending the rights of lesbians and gay men, workers, women, the poor, native people, people of color, the disabled, and immigrants. This page contains a review of the book The New Rank and File, by Alice and Staughton Lynd, Cornell University Press, 2000; 254 pp. Link

Prof. Charles (Chuck) McDew was the first chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). McDew was recently a key advisor to the TNT production Freedom Song, which was partly based on his experiences as an organizer in Mississippi in the early 1960s. A consummate and committed educator/activist, McDew teaches history at Metropolitan State College in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

• Human and Constitutional Rights Resource Page.
  This is a website that includes constitutional rights, charts and links to human rights and constitutional rights websites, hot topics and other resources. Charles McDew is featured on this page. Link
• TNT "Freedom Song" Educator's Guide
  This site features information for teachers on using the "Freedom Song" movie in
  classroom settings. Link

Dr. Bob Moses was the legendary organizer-leader of the Mississippi movement in the 1960s and currently directs the nationally-recognized Algebra Project, which he founded in the 1980s. A role model for SNCC’s unselfish style of community organizing, Moses became the key inspiration and organizer of Mississippi Freedom Summer in 1964. Currently, his work with the Algebra Project uses mathematics literacy to help urban youth develop citizenship skills and broaden the educational, professional and civic possibilities for their lives.

• Algebra Project
  The Algebra Project is a national mathematics literacy effort aimed at helping low income students and students of color-particularly African American and Latino. Bob Moses founded this Project which is based in Cambridge (MA). Link
• Learntoquestion.com
  This is a student–created website accompanying a yearlong course in twentieth-century global history at Boston Latin School in Boston, Massachusetts. The website features Bob Moses' role in the Civil Rights Movement and the Algebra Project. Link

Mr. Es’kia Mphahlele is a South African novelist and essayist whose work focuses on responses to alienation and themes of African Humanism. Because of his outspoken opposition to apartheid and the Bantu Education Act, Mphahlele was twice banned as a teacher and exiled from his country. He is the author of some fourteen volumes of short stories, essays, criticism and poetry including Down Second Avenue, Modern African Stories, Voices in the Whirlwind and Other Essays, and The African Image.

• The National Arts Council of South Africa
  The organization seeks to develop and promote excellence in the arts in South Africa. Dr. Mphahlele is listed as one of the living treasures on the organization’s website. His biography is also given on this page. Link

Imam Warith Deen Muhammad is the leader of the Muslim American Society, based in the Chicago area. The Imam is the son of the Honorable Elijah Mohammed, the late founder and leader of the Nation of Islam. As a young man, Imam W. Deen Mohammed was one of the earliest members of the Nation embrace orthodox Islam, being drawn by the more inclusive message of traditional Muslim teachings.

• This Far By Faith
  This is a PBS series that examines the African -American religious experience through the last three centuries. The Imam Warith Deen Muhammad is featured in the Episode: Witnesses to Faith. Link
• The Muslim American Society
  The Muslim American Society is a charitable, religious, social, cultural, and educational, not-for-profit organization. It is a pioneering Islamic organization, an Islamic revival, and reform movement that uplifts the individual, family, and society. The Imam W. Deen Mohammad is a leader of the American Muslim Society. Link

Dr. Rachel Noel is an educator and activist who was a leader in the movement to desegregate the public school of Denver, Colorado in the 1960s and 1970s. Dr. Noel was director of the Black Studies Department at Metropolitan State College in Denver and was the first African American on the Board of Regents of the University of Colorado. A native of Virginia, Noel is an honored elder in Denver’s Shorter African Methodist Episcopal church.

• Rachel B. Noel Middle School (Denver, CO)
  The School was established in August 2002 in the Denver Public School District. Link

Iyalorixá Valnizia Pereira Oliveira is the chief priestess, or mãe de santo, of the Terreiro do Cobre Candomblé temple in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. Candomblé is an Afro-Brazilian religion created by enslaved Africans and their descendants. The Terreiro do Cobre is a strongly activist ritual community that supports various community education projects. Ms. Pereira, who received her religious training at oldest extant Candomblé temple in Brazil (Casa Branca), is on the forefront of the movement to affirm the value of African religions in Brazil and to increase inter-religious dialogue among participants in various faiths represented among the Brazilian populace.

Makota Valdina Oliveira Pinto is a ritual elder in the Afro-Brazilian religion, Candomblé. She is also an educator, a community organizer and an environmental and human rights activist. Makota Valdina is a founding member of the St. Bartholomew Environmental Education Center -- where she directs a project to link Afro-Brazilian ritual and medicinal plant knowledge with environmental preservation and grassroots citizenship education.

Ms. Fay Bellamy Powell was an organizer in Green County, Alabama; Selma, Alabama; and in Atlanta, Georgia from 1965 to 1968. She was a staff member of the Institute of the Black World and a founding organizer of the National Anti-Klan Network. She is also co-founder of the We Shall Overcome fund, a granting agency supporting the use of Freedom and Labor Movement arts and music traditions in local organizing. An accomplished photographer, Ms. Bellamy Powell is active in local public access media in Atlanta, Georgia.

• We Shall Overcome Fund.
  The “We Shall Overcome” Fund supports African-American music in the South. Fay Bellamy Powell was the co-founder and is also a lifetime Board Member of this foundation. Link
• The Fund for Southern Communities
  The Fund for Southern Communities is a public foundation that supports and unites organizations and donors working to create just and sustainable communities that are free of oppression and that embrace and celebrate all people. Through grant-making and related activities the Fund for Southern Communities fosters social change initiated by community–based groups in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Faye Bellamy Powell participated in the creation of this Fund. Link

Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon is a renowned historian of African American religious music and human rights activist. She is founder and director of Sweet Honey in the Rock, the internationally-known black women’s a cappella ensemble. A native of southwest Georgia, Dr. Johnson Reagon was a founding member of the SNCC Freedom Singers in the early 1960s, and has, since that time, dedicated her life and work to using the rich vocal traditions of African American music as organizing tools in movements for peace, justice and human rights.

• Sweet Honey in the Rock
  Bernice Johnson Reagon founded Sweet Honey in the Rock. The group is an African American female a cappela ensemble with deep roots in the sacred music of the black church, spirituals, hymns, gospels as well as jazz. Link