The 2002 Social Justice Conference has been
expanded to three days: April 5-7, 2002. There
are four main sessions:

• The Death Penalty on Trial
• LGBT: Looking Back and Moving Forward
• Peace and Civil Liberties
• Economic Justice

On Friday and Saturday the Social Justice Conference is divided along the themes of the main focuses. On Sunday all four sessions come together with a final keynote speech and a panel discussion.

The schedule for the conference is:

Session 1: LGBT
Friday, April 5, 7:00 PM to 9:30PM

Session 2: Peace/Civil Liberties:
Saturday, April 6, 9:00AM to 4:00PM

Session 3: Economic Justice:
Saturday, April 6, 9:00AM to 3:00PM

Session 4: Death Penalty:
Saturday, April 6, 3:00PM to 9:00PM

Session 5: Plenary Session (All):
Sunday, April 7, 1:00PM to 5:00PM

Each session is $5 (students are free). However, preregistration received prior to March 31 is only $3 per session or $10 for all 5 sessions.

Checks should be made out to UUCC and
sent with the form to: UUCC, c/o Social
Justice Conference, 234 N. Sharon Amity Road,
Charlotte, NC 28211.

If you would like to register for the conference,
click here for the form to mail in.

Keynote: April 6, 12:30pm

Economic Justice Cynthia Brown has been a community organizer for many years, including nearly a decade as Executive Director of Southerners for Economic Justice. She has spoken extensively about globalization and "free trade" issues and the interconnections between trade policy, domestic economic effects, and militarization. She was most

Keeping the flame of justice alive!

Special Music Performances by:

Daryle Ryce Sunday April 7 12:30 p.m.

Daryle Rice is the "Queen of Jazz" and has made music her life for over 20 years. Her latest CD is "Children of the Earth". She has made 4 albums with Loonis McGlohon. She has performed around the world with great artists such as Dizzy Gilispie and Chet Atkins.

One Voice Chorus Friday April 5 6:40 p.m.

The One Voice Chorus brings gay, lesbian, and gay-supportive people together to celebrate their lives in song.

Conference Keynote Speaker:

Keynote: April 7, 1:30pm

Congressman Mel Watt In 1992, Mel was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from North Carolina's 12th District and became one of only two black members elected to Congress from North Carolina in this century.

He serves on the Financial Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee on which he is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. . In 1970 he received a JD degree from Yale University Law School. Mel practiced law with the law firm formerly known as Chambers, Stein, Ferguson and Becton from 1971 to 1992. He is part owner of a 120-bed board and care facility for elderly and handicapped residents and part owner of the McDonald's Cafeteria and Hotel complex in Charlotte.

Keynote: April 7, 1:00pm

Melvin "Skip" Alston is the President of the North Carolina State Conference of NAACP Branches and Guilford County Commissioner. A native of Durham, he was

educated in the Durham public schools and at North Carolina Central University, majoring in business administration. He moved to Greensboro in 1979 and there, at twenty-five, found S&J Management Corporation, a real estate firm specializing in property management and sales. He has served fours years as treasurer of the National Association of Black County Officials. He is also a contributor to "Unjust in the Much," a book about the injustices of the death penalty in North Carolina.

Session Keynote Speakers:

Keynote: April 6, 8:00pm

Death Penalty

Stephen Dear is the Executive Director of People of Faith Against the Death Penalty. He has pursued a grassroots strategy of approaching North Carolina city councils, seeking

municipal resolutions supporting a statewide moratorium on executions. The strategy has been remarkably successful, not only in traditionally more liberal college communities such as Carrboro, Chapel Hill and Davidson, but also in Asheville, Greensboro, Charlotte and Winston-Salem. In all, fifteen North Carolina municipalities, many never known as centers of liberal activity, have formally adopted moratorium resolutions between 1998 and 2002.

Keynote: April 5, 7:30pm

Speakers and Panelists:

Mandi Ayers is a labor activist, a member of the Stagehand’s Union and a longtime FLOC supporter. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Southern Piedmont Central Labor Council. She is also a member of the Witness for Peace delegation traveling to Colombia in January 2002.

Keith Bernard, a CPA, is Director of Finance for Time Warner Cable Adcast. He currently serves as co-Secretary of the Lesbian and Gay Community Center. He has previously served as co-chair of First Tuesday Association for Gay and Lesbian Equality, CO-chair of the North Carolina Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality, and as a board member of the Charlotte chapter of the ACLU.

Rev. Amy Brooks is the Community Minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte and works at RAIN, Regional AIDS Interfaith Network.

Ted Frazer is a member of the Charlotte Coalition for a Moratorium Now, an organization which meets twice a month working for a statewide moratorium on executions. He is also CO-chair of St. Peter's (Catholic) Social Justice Committee.

Dr. William ("Bill") Gay is Professor of Philosophy at UNC Charlotte. Areas of Specialization include War and Peace Studies and links between Language and Violence. He has co-authored several books and written numerous articles on war and peace and the philosophy of language.

Stan Goff, a US Special Forces veteran of 25 years, is a leading member of the North Carolina Network for Popular Democracy, and the author of "Hideous Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti".

Henderson Hill joined the law firm of Ferguson, Stein, Wallas, Adkins Gresham& Sumpter in 1996 and received the Paul Green Award from the North Carolina Civil Liberties Union in 1999, the Lawyer of the Year Award from the North Carolina Association of Black Lawyers in 1999, and was named Lawyer of the Year by the George W. White Bar Association, Durham in 1996.

Jibril Hough is a Muslim convert, is a member of the Islamic Center of Charlotte. He has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and is an outspoken critic of ethnic profiling.

Wally Kleucker, Chair of the Social Action Committee, Manager of the Social Outreach Council of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte, director of the Social Justice Conference and webmaster of the conference website.

Richard Kushmaul is the president of the board of trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte. He is also a member of the Board and Nominating Chair of Carolina Voices, previously known as the Charlotte Choral Society, which was the nation’s first "Singing Christmas Tree."

Rev. David McBriar is pastor of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham, was in a delegation of death penalty opponents who had visited with former Gov. Hunt seeking mercy for death row inmate Carter. resulting in the only commutation of a death penalty sentence during Hunt's four terms in office. He also wrote to the Pope about condemned inmate John Hardy Rose's case and brought a message from the Pope appealling to Governor Easley for clemency last November.

Rev. Dr. Doug Reisner is minister emeritus of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte and one of the community leaders who helped start Time Out Youth.

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