A NORTH CAROLINA SUMMIT:

POVERTY AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE IN A TIME OF CRISIS

Speaker Biographies

Rev. Dr. William Barber, President, NC NAACP

Rev. Dr. William Barber is president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP. He serves as pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, a 120-year-old congregation with over 400 members and 30 active ministries. He is chairperson of the Rebuilding Broken Places Community Development Corporation, a non-profit organization involved with building affordable single family homes and senior citizen housing and providing job training, affordable child care, and inner city revitalization in Goldsboro. Barber has held adjunct faculty positions at both Duke University and North Carolina Central University, and is the author of the book Preaching

Through Unexpected Pain. He graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Public Administration from NC Central University, earned his Master of Divinity from the Duke Divinity School, and his doctoral degree from Drew University in Madison, NJ. He has served as executive director for the NC Human Relations Commission, appointed by Governor James B. Hunt, and is a noted advocate for social justice issues in North Carolina. Andrea Bazán, President, Triangle Community Foundation

Andrea Bazán is president of the Triangle Community Foundation, a philanthropic organization with assets of over $135 million. She has held that position since 2005. Prior to that, she was executive director of El Pueblo, a Latino advocacy and public policy organization, and a lobbyist at the NC General Assembly for several years. She also held positions at the UNC School of Public Health and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. Bazán is an active member of the community, serves as a mentor to students and is a frequent speaker at local and national events. She served on the board of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil

rights organization, including a term as chair. She sits on the Leadership Council of Hispanics in Philanthropy and on the boards of BlueCross/BlueShield, the Friends of the Nasher Museum, Women’s Forum of North Carolina, Triangle Tomorrow, and Wachovia Bank/Wells Fargo in

Raleigh. She holds an appointment to the Department of Homeland Security’s Southwest Border Taskforce under President Obama and is a member of the NC Institute of Medicine, initially appointed by Gov. Hunt. In February 2011, President Obama appointed Bazán to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Bazán has been named one of the 100 Most Influential Hispanics by Hispanic Business magazine, and Latino Leaders magazine included her in its list of 101 Top Latino leaders in the US. She has received numerous awards and also has a scholarship named in her honor that supports Latino students established by El Pueblo. Anita Brown-Graham, Director, Institute for Emerging Issues, NC State University

Anita Brown-Graham joined the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) as director in January 2007. Previously, she worked at the University of North Carolina’s Institute of Government since 1994. Prior to that, she served as law clerk to the Honorable William B. Shubb in the eastern district of California and as business litigation counsel in a Sacramento, California law firm. Brown-Graham has provided significant training and written books and articles focused on developing the economic base of distressed communities. She also currently serves on the boards of several development organizations and foundations. Brown-Graham earned an

undergraduate degree from Louisiana State University and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Angela Bryant, Representative, District 7, NC House of Representatives

Angela R. Bryant represents District 7 (Halifax and Nash counties) in the NC House of Representatives. She is a senior consultant and co-founder of VISIONS, Inc. She is the former director and one of the developers of The Wright’s Center, VISIONS’ award winning multicultural adult day health care project in Rocky Mount for elders, disabled adults, their caregivers, and service providers. Bryant has 30 years of legal experience and was a state administrative law judge for ten years. She earned her J.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since then, she has held several appointed governmental positions of significant responsibility, including membership on the UNC-

CH Board of Trustees and the UNC Board of Governors. Bryant was a Charter Member and former president of the North Carolina Association of Women Attorneys. She was named the 1983 Lawyer of the Year for the NC Association of Black Lawyers for co-founding the Land Loss Prevention Project at NCCU School of Law, and she received the 2006 Distinguished Alumni Award from UNC. Bryant actively supports numerous community organizations, has served on the City Council of Rocky Mount and briefly served as Mayor Pro Tem before being appointed to the House of Representatives in January 2007.

N. Yolanda Burwell, Fellow, NC Rural Economic Development Center, Inc.

N. Yolanda Burwell is a senior fellow with NC Rural Economic Development Center where she looks at barriers to and incentives in economic opportunities. Prior to this position, she taught social work for 25 years in undergraduate programs in Louisiana and North Carolina. Her research interests and publications are on social welfare history in African American communities and early female leaders and organizations. She has been a scholar-in-residence at five schools/departments of social work to speak on social work history and African American contributions. In addition to

research and teaching, she has conducted numerous successful trainings and consultancies on team-working, cultural competence, conflict resolution and communication. Burwell received her bachelor’s degree in social work from North Carolina A&T State University, her master’s degree from the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and her Ph.D. from Cornell University. Patrick Conway, Bowman and Gordon Gray Professor of Economics, UNC

Patrick Conway is Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been on the faculty of since 1983. During that time, he has taught courses in introductory economics, international economics, development economics and macroeconomics both to undergraduates and to graduate students. He was awarded the William C. Friday Award in 2001 for excellence in teaching. His research has focused upon the international aspects of trade and finance with developing countries. He is the author of three books and many refereed journal articles, including “Crisis, Stabilization and Growth: Economic

Adjustment in Transition Economies” in 2001. His current research interests include the impact of IMF lending programs on developing-country welfare, the development of financial markets in transition economies, the welfare impact of exchange-rate depreciation in developing countries, and the impact on US workers of US textiles and apparel imports. Conway served in the Peace Corps in Cote d’Ivoire in 1975-77, and as a special assistant to the Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs in 1980-81. He has served as an international and macroeconomic expert on World Bank missions to Morocco, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Belarus, and has twice been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund. He was named a Council on Foreign Relations fellow in 1989 for his work on the implications of the debt crisis for developing countries. He received his B.S.F.S. from Georgetown University, and his M.P.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University.

William A. “Sandy” Darity, Jr., Arts & Sciences Professor of Public Policy Studies and Professor of African and African-American Studies and Economics, Duke University

William A. “Sandy” Darity, Jr. is Arts & Sciences Professor of Public Policy Studies and Professor of African and African American Studies and Economics at Duke University. Previously he served as director of the Institute of African American Research, director of the Moore Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, director of the Undergraduate Honors Program in economics, and director of Graduate Studies, all at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Darity’s research focuses on inequality by race, class and ethnicity, stratification economics, schooling and the racial achievement gap, North-South theories of trade and development, skin shade and labor market

outcomes, the economics of reparations, the Atlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution, doctrinal history and the social psychological effect Darity was a fellow at the National Humanities Center and a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors. He is a past president of the National Economic Association and the Southern Economic Association. He has also taught at Grinnell College, the University of Maryland at College Park, the University of Texas at Austin, Simmons College and Claremont-McKenna College. He is Editor in Chief of an edition of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Macmillan Reference, 2008). His most recent books are Economics, Economists, and Expectations: Microfoundations to Macroapplications (2004) (co-authored with Warren Young and Robert Leeson) and a volume co-edited with Ashwini Deshpande titled Boundaries of Clan and Color: Transnational Comparisons of Inter-Group Disparity (2003) both published by Routledge. He has published or edited 10 books and more than 125 articles in professional journals.

s of unemployment exposure.

Pablo Escobar, Board Treasurer, El Pueblo Inc.

Pablo Escobar serves as the treasurer of El Pueblo’s Board of Directors. He is a community volunteer involved with several non-profit agencies in North Carolina. Pablo is on the board of directors of Wake County Human Services and Environmental Services, the Environmental Education Fund and various task forces and steering committees that are trying to mitigate the harmful effects of poverty. Escobar’s past professional experience includes operations with Urban Ministries of Wake County, budget management with Wake County Government, financial management with Kaiser Permanente, and several consulting assignments in both the public and private sector. Fluency in English, Spanish, French and Italian and an understanding of cultural

differences help him meet the mission of organizations providing services in a diverse community. Escobar has lived in many different places including Texas, New York, California, Alabama, Mexico, Italy, Belgium and West Africa, where he was a Peace Corps volunteer. He holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.P.A. from NC State University.

Chris Fitzsimon, Executive Director, NC Policy Watch

Chris Fitzsimon is the founder and director of NC Policy Watch, a progressive public policy think tank that is a special project of the NC Justice Center. He writes the daily Fitzsimon File, delivers a daily radio commethat is broadcast statewide on the North Carolina News Network, hosts Neand Views, a weekly radio news magazine that also airs on the network stations. He also appears weekly on NC Spin, a North Carolina television news talk show aired on stations across the state. He is a frequent speaker on government and politics and has been quoted in scores of national publications including the New York Times, USA Today, The Christian ScieMonitor, the Nation, and Colu

ntary ws

nce mbia Journalism Review.

Prior to NC Policy Watch, Fitzsimon served as the spokesman of the Campaign to Protect America’s Lands, a national, nonpartisan advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. Before heading to Washington, Fitzsimon was the founder and for nine years the executive director of the Common Sense Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was an award-winning television news reporter for nine years, including four years at North Carolina Public Television and three years at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, where he covered government and politics. He left WRAL to become Special Assistant for Policy and Communications for House Speaker Dan Blue before founding the Common Sense Foundation. Fitzsimon has a B.A. in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. William C. Friday, President Emeritus, UNC

President Emeritus William C. Friday has had a long and distinguished career of service in North Carolina’s public life. He served as assistant dean of student at UNC-CH from 1948 to 1951, and was named assistant to President Gordon Gray in 1951. He was appointed Secretary of the University in 1956, named Acting President in 1956 and became President later in the same year. Friday served in this position for a full thirty years until his retirement in 1986. As President of UNC, Friday worked to ensure processes of fairness and integrity through North Carolina’s turbulent desegregation era in

the 1950s and 1960s, mediating between the legislature and student activists. During his tenure, the UNC system grew from three to sixteen campuses. He has served on a number of national committees, commissions and boards, including the Association of American Universities; the Commission on White House Fellows; the Presidential Task Force on Education; and the Board of Governors of the Center for Creative Leadership. He served as the first executive director of the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust from 1986 to 1996, and was a founding co-chair of the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics. He continues hosting his UNC-TV program NC People, which has been on the air since 1971.

Friday graduated from NC State University with a B.A. in textile engineering in 1941. He served as a lieutenant in the United States Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946, and received his J.D. from the UNC School of Law in 1948. Irene Godínez, Legislative Director, Latin American Coalition

Irene Godínez is a native North Carolinian of proud Mexican heritage. Growing up in Durham in an immigrant household, as a first-generation US American, gave her a unique perspective on race relations, economic disparities and a desire to pursue social justice. As an undergraduate student she was exposed to North Carolina politics through an internship with Lieutenant Governor Beverly Purdue’s office. Godínez earned a B.A. in political science from North Carolina State University. She then worked with the North

Carolina Office of the Governor in the Office of Hispanic/Latino Affairs while pursuing her Master of International Studies at North Carolina State University, which she completed in 2006. Godínez was the director of the advocacy program and lobbyist for El Pueblo, Inc. prior to moving on to the Reform Immigration FOR America national campaign where she was the NC District Director. She then transitioned into the Latin American Coalition (LAC) where she and the Advocacy Team launched and executed a statewide, non-partisan civic engagement campaign in the fall of 2010. Currently Godínez is the Legislative Director for the LAC and represents the agency’s interests while lobbying at the NC General Assembly. She is passionate about education equality, youth issues, immigration and public policy. Ferrel Guillory, Director, UNC Program on Public Life

Ferrel Guillory founded the Program on Public Life (formerly the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life) in 1997 to build bridges between academic resources at UNC and leaders in government, journalism and civic life in North Carolina and the South. In addition to his position at the UNC School of Journalism, he is an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Public Policy at UNC. Guillory is also a senior fellow at MDC, Inc., a workforce and economic development non-profit research firm in Chapel Hill. Through MDC he has co-authored The State of the South, a series of biennial reports to the region and its leadership (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007). He also co-authored the book, The Carolinas: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: An Exploration of Social and Economic Trends, 1924-1999 (Duke Press, 1999), commissioned by the

Duke Endowment. Governor Easley appointed Guillory to the North Carolina Education First Task Force and to the Council on the Southern Community of the Southern Growth Policies Board. He served on the steering committee of the Rural Prosperity Task Force, appointed by Governor Jim Hunt and chaired by Erskine Bowles. For the James B. Hunt, Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and

Policy, he wrote the paper, “Education Governors for the 21st Century.’’ In 2000, Guillory taught at Davidson College as the James K. Batten Professor of Public Policy. Before working in academia, Guillory spent more than 20 years as a reporter, editorial page editor and columnist for The News & Observer in Raleigh. He has had freelance articles published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The New Republic, America, Commonweal, Southern Cultures and The Atlanta Constitution. Guillory has contributed chapters to books on David Duke and the politics of race, on economic transition in tobacco regions and on North Carolina politics and government. He received his B.A. from Loyola University and his M.A. at the School of Journalism at Columbia University. He was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007. Bob Hall, Executive Director, Democracy North Carolina

Bob Hall is the executive director of Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan organization that combines research, grassroots organizing, and advocacy to increase voter participation and decrease the influence of special influence money in North Carolina politics. His organization co-led successful efforts to win same-day registration for North Carolina voters, as well as public campaign financing programs for 25 judicial and executive branch offices and a landmark package of ethics reforms. His research is cited in scores of news stories each year, is used by law enforcement agencies to prosecute wrongdoers, and has helped advance specific voting rights legislation. Hall has served on numerous nonprofit boards and commissions, provided

expert testimony in court cases, assisted labor and community organizing campaigns, and consulted with officials in a dozen states on election reform. Publications include Who Owns North Carolina, The Green Index, The Democracy Index, and Environmental Politics: Lessons from the Grassroots. He was the founding editor of Southern Exposure, the magazine of the Institute for Southern Studies where he worked for 25 years. He holds a B.A. from Rhodes Colleges and M.A. from Columbia University, and has received a number of honors, including the NC Press Association’s William Lassiter First Amendment Award, the NC AARP’s Advocacy Friend of the Year Award, and the NC NAACP’s Political Trailblazer Award. Jarvis A. Hall, Professor of Political Science and Director, Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change, NC Central University; Chair, Political Action Committee, NC NAACP

Jarvis A. Hall is Associate Professor of Political Science and director of the Institute for Civic Engagement and Social Change at North Carolina Central University. Prior to becoming director of the Institute, Hall chaired the Department of Political Science from 1998 to 2005. In addition, he served as director of the Academic Community Service Learning Program for two years at NCCU. Hall attended North Carolina A & T State University as an undergraduate, received his Master of Public Policy degree from the University of Michigan

and later earned his doctorate in political science from Duke University. He works with several political and policy organizations on progressive policy issues, including serving as chair of the Political Action Committee of the North Carolina NAACP. He also serves on the boards of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education, the North Carolina American Civil Liberties Union, and the Carolina Justice Policy Center. Hall has taught at North Carolina A&T State University, St. Lawrence University and Washington and Lee University. He has been at North Carolina Central University since 1995. His teaching and research interests include African American politics, social movements, grassroots politics, civil rights, public policy, and electoral behavior. George Hausen, Executive Director, Legal Aid of North Carolina

George Hausen is the executive director of Legal Aid of North Carolina in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he oversees the state’s 25 regional offices and a dedicated staff of 250. Previously, he served as an attorney at the Lawyers’ Committee for Better Housing in Chicago. In 1999, he became the deputy director for litigation and advocacy at Legal Services of North Carolina. In 2001, all federally funded legal services programs merged, and Hausen was named executive director of the new statewide organization, Legal Aid of North Carolina. Hausen received his J.D. degree from DePaul University, and is a former marine.

James H. Johnson, Jr., Director, Urban Investment Strategies Center, Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and Kenan Distinguished Professor, Kenan-Flagler Business School, UNC

James H. Johnson, Jr. is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship and director of the Urban Investment Strategies Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research interests include community and economic development, the effects of demographic changes on the US workplace, interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies, urban poverty and public policy in urban America, and workforce diversity issues. Johnson examines the causes and consequences of growing inequality in American society, particularly as it affects socially and economically disadvantaged youth; entrepreneurial approaches to poverty alleviation, job

creation, and community development; interethnic minority conflict in advanced industrial societies; and business demography and workforce diversity issues. Currently he is researching the economic and employment impact of white collar job shifts offshore on US competitiveness. Johnson co-authored studies on the economic impact of African Americans and Hispanics in North Carolina, and, with support from the Russell Sage Foundation, published research on the economic impact of September 11 on U.S. metropolitan communities. He has published more than 100 scholarly research articles and three research monographs and has co-edited four theme issues of

scholarly journals. His latest book is Prismatic Metropolis: Inequality in Los Angeles. He received his B.S. from North Carolina Central University, his M.S. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his Ph.D. from Michigan State University. Michael D. Jones, Fellow, Edmund J. Safra Center, Harvard University

Michael D. Jones received his Ph.D. in political science in 2010 from the University of Oklahoma. His dissertation, titled Heroes and Villains: Cultural Narratives, Mass Opinions, and Climate Change, empirically examines the role of narratively structured information in shaping public perceptions about solutions to climate change. Following the line of research began by his dissertation, he recently co-authored an article titled “A Narrative Policy Framework: Clear Enough to be Wrong?” in the Policy Studies Journal that details how policy narratives can be empirically studied. Working in conjunction with the Cultural Cognition Project at Yale University, the narrative techniques developed in his dissertation and theorized in the

recent article are currently being applied to the study of public opinion about gay and lesbian parenting. These narrative techniques will play a central role in his research during his stay at the Edmund J. Safra Center at Harvard University, where he is a fellow. During his fellowship, Jones will again be collaborating with the Cultural Cognition Project to examine the role of cultural orientations and narrative communication in shaping mass opinion about campaign finance reform.

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es from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a law degree om Yale University.

Melinda Lawrence, Executive Director, NC Justice Center

Melinda Lawrence joined the North Carolina Justice Center as executive director in February 2007. Prior to joining the Justice Center, she was a partner with the law firm of Patterson, Harkavy and Lawrence LLP from 1979 to 2003 and of counsel to the firm from 2003 to 2007. Lawrence’s practice was concentrated in the areas of civil rights, and consumer and employment rights litigation. During her career, she litigated numerous high-profile cases in North Carolina. These include Willie M. v. Hunt, which established new rights and services for mentally handicapped children, and Small v. Martin, which resulted in a major reform of North Carolina’s prisons. She has also represented countless individuals challenging discriminatory treatment in their workplaces, sc

c Lawrence also worked as a city planner for the city of New York, a school counselor in rural NorthCarolina, and a lobbyist promoting consumer protections against predatory lenders. She receivedB.A. and M. Ed. degrefr

Brian McDonald, Teacher, Jordan High School

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ate f Elon University and is pursuing a master’s degree from North Carolina Central University.

MaryBe McMillan, Secr tary-Treasurer, NC State AFL-CIO

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September 2009, she was elected by cclamation to a second term.

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of the ternational Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 465 in Durham, North Carolina.

Brian McDonald, history teacher at Jordan High School in Durham, has developed a high school-level curriculum for a course entitled “PovertyAmerica.” This course aims to inform a new generation of Americans about the history, causes, and effects of domestic poverty as well as how poverty remains a problem in society today. Through reading, writing, and class projects, students gain analytical skills and a solid understanof poverty in the United States and how it came to be. After a lengprocess initiated by McDonald, the curriculum for this course was

approved by the NC State Board of Education for Durham Public Schools. There is also a service-learning component of the course and students have been involved with Hurricane Katrina clean-upissues and, this year, with Urban Ministries of Durham. In addition to the 15 hours of communiservice to the organization required for each student, the class is also trying to raise $c Brian McDonald was featured as Teacher of the Week on WRAL News in September 2009, wnamed Jordan High School’s 2009 Teacher of the Year and was a finalist for Durham Public Schools’ Teacher of the Year, also in 2009. He is a Nationally Board Certified Teacher, a graduo

e MaryBe McMillan is Secretary-Treasurer of the North Carolina State AFL-CIO, representing 130,000 union members throughout the state. With herelection to this position in 2005, she became the first female officer history of the organization. Ina Prior to working for the AFL-CIO, she worked as Research Director for the Common Sense Foundation and as State Policy Analyst for the

School & Community Trust. In 2006, Governor Easley appointed her to serve on the NC Commission on Workforce Development. She chaired the strategic pC McMillan grew up in Hickory, North Carolina. She is a long-time social justice activist who becaminvolved with union organizing as a student. She graduated summa cum laude from Wake ForesUniversity with a B.A. in sociology. She also holds a M.A. degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a Ph.D. in sociology from NC State University. She is a memberIn

Gene Nichol, Director, Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity, UNC

ourses in constitutional law, federal courts, civil rights and election law.

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the University of Colorado (1990) and the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North

icle of Higher Education, The Richmond imes-Dispatch, The Denver Post and The Charlotte Observer. From 1994 to 1995, he was host of a public

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Award” from the National Employment Lawyers Association; and the Thomas Jefferson Award, for courage in the defense of religious liberty, from the Military Religious Freedom

ichol received his B.A. degree in philosophy from Oklahoma State University and his J.D. from e University of Texas.

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in 1996. He served as executive director of the Justice Center from 001 to 2004 and presided over a period of unprecedented organizational

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Gene Nichol is professor of law and director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina. He teaches c From 2005 to 2008, Nichol was the 26th president of the College of William and Mary. He was Burton Craige Professor and dean of the law school at the University of North Carolina from 1999 to 2005; law dean the University of Colorado from 1988 to 1995; and James Gould Cutler Professor and director of the Bill of Rights Institute at William and Mary from 1985 to 1988. Nichol has also taught at Oxford, Exeter, Florida West Virginia. He founded the Byron White Center of Constitutio

atCarolina (2001). Nichol is co-author of Federal Courts (West, 2d edition, 2011 with Wells, Marshall & Yackle); FEDERAL COURTS: Cases and Comments (West, 2000 with Redish); and contributing author of WHERE WE STAND: Voices of Southern Dissent (NewSouth, 2004). He has also published articles and essays in an array of leading legal journals. From 1998 to 1999, he was a political columnist for the Denver-Rocky Mountain News, and he has been a monthly op-ed writer for The News & Observer for almost a decade. His editorials are occasionally distributed nationally by the American Forum. He has also written for The Washington Post, The Nation, The ChronTaffairs television show, Culture Wars, for KBDI in Denver. In 2005, Governor Easley inducted Nichol into the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, North Carolina’shighest civilian honor, and Equal Justice Works named him Pro Bono Law School Dean of theIn 2007-8, he received Oklahoma State University’s Distinguished Alumnus Award; the “Courage To Do Justice

Foundation.

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ounsel, North Carolina Justice Center

Bill Rowe came to the Justice Center’s predecessor organization, the NC LegalServices Resource Center in 1991 and has been with the Justice Center sincinception

Bill Rowe, General

2growth. Rowe is a committed anti-poverty advocate with more than two decades’ experience that spans the breadth of the organization’s four strategic are

expertise: litigation, community education, research and direct legislative advocacy. He has served ascounsel in class action lawsuits concerning consumer rights, public benefits, and housing law.addition, he has represented members of the state’s low-income communities before the legisland state agencies on issues related to housing, employment, judicial procedures, and environmjustice. O

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ver the years, he has developed an expertise in landlord-tenant law and a passion for vancing affordable housing policies.

enneth Schorr, Executive Director, Legal Services of Southern Piedmont

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in 1975, and his B.A. in Economics and Environmental Studies in 1972 from randeis University.

lexandra Forter Sirota, Director, NC Budget and Tax Center

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Kenneth Schorr has been the executive director of Legal Services of Southern Piedmont since 1988, where he has created new programs to serve persons with HIV/AIDS, non-English speaking immigrants, pof dependent and neglected children, and working families with tax disputes. He has developed innovative multi-media self-help client methods and sustained LSSP’s many complex litigation and impact advocacy programs. Prior to this, he served as the executive director Legal Services of North Texas, and taught as an adjunct profpoverty law at Southern Methodist University Law School. He has also held positions as litigation director and acting executive director of Community Legal Services in Phoenix, Arizona, where he

personally handled major cases involving immigrants, prisoners and consumer transactions. Aactive trial and appellate practice attorney in the 1970s, Schorr represented labor unions and individual employees, and worked in the legal public interest areas of tax reform, consumer lautility regulation, environmental law and civil liberties. He received his Master of Science in Organization Development from American University in 2001, his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law SchoolB A

Alexandra Forter Sirota joined the NC Budget and Tax Center as a Public Policy Analyst in April 2010 and became project director in November 201Before joining the NC Justice Center, Sirota coordinated research on chilwell-being and policy analysis on family economic security at Action for Children North Carolina. She has a broad range of experience at non-profit organizations and government agencies both in the United States and abin the areas of human rights, community development and anti-poverty programs, and asset building policy. Sirota received a bachelor’s degree fHaverford College in Pe

Timothy Tyson, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Documentary Studies and Visiting Professor S

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etrayed: The Wilmington Race Riot of 1898 and Its Legacy (UNC Press, 1998), which won the 1999 utstanding Book Award from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in North

versity (M.A. ’91, Ph.D. ’94).

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s staff and managing attorney for Legal Services of Southern

Winner is a native North Carolinian and has spent her career as a public interest lawyer and public servant in North Carolina. Over the course of her career, she has worked on issues including civil rights, gender equity, affordable housing, public education, and higher education.

outhern Culture, Duke University

Timothy Tyson is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Documentary Studies and Visiting Professor of American Christianity and Southern Culture at Duke University. He is the author of Blood Done Sign My Name, a finalist for the National BookCritics Circle Award, winner of the Christopher Award and the North Caroliniana Book Award, and 2005 selection of the CarolinSummer Reading Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, assigned to all new undergraduate students. Blood

of American Christianity and

Sign My NameFebruary 2010, and was adapted for the stage in a production by Mike Wiley.

Tyson’s previous book Radio Free Dixie: Robert F. Williams and the Roots of Black Power (UNC Pres1999) won the James Rawley Prize and was co-winner of the Fredrick Jackson Turner Prize, both from the Organization of American Historians. He also co-edited, with David S. Cecelski, Democracy BOAmerica. Tyson is a North Carolina native and a graduate of Duke Uni Leslie J. Winner,

xecutive Director, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation

Leslie J. Winner joined the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in January 2008 asexecutive director. Prior to her arrival, she served as vice-president and general counsel to the University of North Carolina. She has also served as gecounsel to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education and in the NortCarolina Senate. She was an adjunct professor at the UNC School of Law; wapartner in the law practice of Ferguson, Stein, Watt, Wallas, Adkins & Gresham; waPiedmont, Inc.; and served as law clerk to the Honorable James B. McMillan, Judge of the US District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.