ABA and Chicago State University Sponsor Town Hall Meeting on Teen Violence
“Stop Teen Violence—Time to Deliver” is the topic of a town hall meeting to be convened 7 to 9 p.m. Nov. 20 at Chicago State University’s Jacoby Dickens Center, 9501 S. Martin Luther King Dr., Chicago, by the American Bar Association Council on Racial and Ethnic Justice and the university.
Dr. Steve Perry, principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School, Hartford, Conn., and author of “Man Up! Nobody Is Coming to Save Us,” will moderate a panel discussion before opening the meeting to audience participation. David A. Perkins, chair of the ABA council and Wayne D. Watson, president of CSU, will give opening remarks. Perkins is a referee in the juvenile division of the Wayne County Circuit Court, Detroit. Panelists will include Sandy Lewis, director of community affairs for Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez; Jennifer Welch, policy director for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Marian Perkins Phillips, president of the Cook County Bar Association; and Chicago Police Department Sgt. Elgin Holt.
Panelists representing community organizations include Diane Latiker, founder and president of Kids Off the Block; Jonathan Peck, associate director for organizing and projects of the Southwest Youth Collaborative; and Ronald Holt, executive director and founder of the Blair Holt Foundation and the father of a 16-year-old Julian High School student killed in 2007.
Additional panelists will be Rev. Leon Finney Jr., pastor of the Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church, president of The Woodland Organization and chairman of the CSU board; Rev. Janette C. Wilson, president and chief executive officer of International Sunday School Broadcast, Inc.; Hermene Hartman, president and chief executive officer of Hartman Publishing Group, Inc., publisher of N’DIGO; and Darlene Hill of Fox News Chicago.
The Chicago meeting is the first of three to be sponsored by the ABA council in cooperation with local organizations, focused on addressing teen violence. Additional sessions are planned in spring 2010 in Detroit and during the ABA Annual Meeting in August 2010 in San Francisco. Goals for the program series are to coordinate local and national experts and organizations developing strategies, develop an action plan for cities and publish a guide to best practices, projects and programs addressing teen violence.
With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.
Editors Note: The Town Hall meeting is open to coverage by accredited news media. Media credentials are available from Tamiko Franklin-Lee of the ABA at 312-988-5237 or leet@staff.abanet.org, or from Felicia Horton of CSU at 773-821-4976 or f-horton@csu.edu. ABA Media Credentials policies are posted at http://www.abanet.org/media/credentials.html.
