Experts

The SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective is a national network of reproductive justice organizations and our allies in the U.S., including Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Founded in 1997, SisterSong supports its 70 organizational and 400 individual members by sponsoring conferences for women of color and our allies to network together, mentor each other, and advocate for reproductive health and sexual rights issues affecting women of color. We publish "Collective Voices," the only national newspaper by and for women of color on reproductive justice issues. Our website is www.sistersong.net for more information.

Xochitl Bervera, Co-Director with Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC). Ms. Bervera spent two years as a Soros Justice Fellow working with Grassroots Leadership and FFLIC to develop and implement southern, statewide strategies for radical criminal justice reform by linking community based, direct action organizing and the law. Xochitl is a trained facilitator specializing in campaign development aimed at helping coalitions and grassroots organizations strategically build power to win.  xochitl@mediajumpstart.org

Brad Ott has been a patient at New Orleans Charity Hospital since he had a stroke 2 years ago. Brad currently must receive treatment at a clinic every 2 weeks for his ongoing health conditions. He was able to receive excellent care from Charity and LSU clinics, in spite of the fact that his job did not provide insurance. Brad is currently involved with the struggle to Save Charity Hospital and to make sure that everyone in Louisiana has access to the health services they need. He is now active in efforts to re-open the hospital and to find solutions to Louisiana’s healthcare crisis. 

bradott@bellsouth.net

Common Ground is a community-run organization offering temporary assistance and mutual aid to the citizens of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. Common Ground's team includes doctors, lawyers, aid workers, community organizers, and volunteers of all stripes and creeds. If you would like to volunteer to assist Common Ground bring relief to those affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, please see this site.

The Applied Research Center is a public policy institute advancing racial justice through research, advocacy and journalism. Through Strategic Research the Applied Research Center provides the analytical foundation for racial justice campaigns across the nation. The Applied Research Center's Public Policy program works to ensure racial justice at every level of government by advancing an innovative framework in both policy analysis and advocacy. The Racial Justice Leadership Initiative strengthens the cadre of leaders and organizations ready to confront, not ignore, the color line. The Applied Research Center’s Journalism program defies the conventional wisdom of mainstream media with the quarterly magazine ColorLines.

Dr Ronald Walters is internationally known for his expertise on African American leadership and politics, his writing and his media saavy. Walters is a frequent guest on the media from CNN's Crossfire and NBC's Today Show to Pacifica's Living Room and NPR's All Things Considered. He is director of the African American Leadership Institute and professor of government and politics at University of Maryland. rwalters@academy.umd.edu   

On August 29 2005, Hurricane Katrina unleashed its wrath on the home of the Houma Nation. About four thousand of our tribe's members were directly affected and are now scattered across the US in various shelters. Lives were lost, livelihoods affected and homes were either damaged or completely destroyed.

Hollis Watkins is the Co-Founder and President of Southern Echo, Inc., a leadership development, education, training, and technical assistance organization dedicated to empowering local residents throughout Mississippi and the Southern region to make political, economic, educational, and environmental systems accountable to the needs and interests of the African-American community.
souecho@bellsouth.net or 601-982-6400

Damen Hewitt is a native of New Orleans, and considers himself a direct beneficiary of the continuing struggle for civil and human rights for people of African descent in Louisiana, across the Gulf region and wolrldwide.

Since February, 2006, Mr. Hewitt has been on detail in New Orleans, coordinating LDF’s post-Hurricane Katrina advocacy work. He recently served as co-counsel in Wallace v. Blanco, a federal civil rights lawsuit brought to ensure that displaced African-American voters have meaningful access to the ballot in the upcoming Orleans Parish municipal elections. This lawsuit resulted in an unprecedented court order granting legal observers and community volunteers—some of whom were displaced New Olreanians—access to polling sites in order to monitor the spring municipal elections and address any problems they observed.
Mr. Hewitt also serves on the Advisory Boards of “Safe Streets/Strong Communities” (a post-Katrina collaborative whose mission is the wholesale reform of New Orleans’ troubled criminal justice system) and the Hurricane Information Relief Network (an organization that aims to provide accurate, reliable information to hurricane evacuees living within the “Katrina Diaspora”).  dhewitt@naacpldf.org

The Miami Workers Center is a strategy and organizing center for low-income communities and low-wage workers in Miami-Dade County. Initiated in March 1999, the Center’s mission is to work to end poverty and oppression. We do this by building the power of grassroots organizations made up of and led by the people most affected by these problems and by assisting in the development of a broad-based social justice movement in South Florida.