A Dialogue On Racism, Social Justice and Action

Speakers

Rev. Dr. Kadia Edwards

Rev. Dr. Kadia Edwards, a native of St. Catherine, Jamaica answered her call to ministry in 2002 while serving as a Chapel Assistant at Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She is a graduate of Duke University where she received her Master of Divinity. Prior to her enrollment at Duke, in May of 2005, Kadia graduated from Howard University with a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism. Kadia recently graduated with a Doctor of Ministry degree from Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. Her DMin concentration in Theology, Ethics, and Narratives informs her multivalent methodological approach to racial healing.

Dr. Edwards is licensed and ordained to public ministry in the American Baptist Churches denomination. She is a storytelling practitioner which allows her to travel the country facilitating trainings and workshops relating to storytelling, peacebuilding, and racial healing.

Currently, Dr. Edwards serves as the National Coordinator of Volunteer Mobilization and Disaster Response Ministry at American Baptist Home Mission Societies.

Hawk Newsome, J.D.

Hawk Newsome is an activist at the forefront of the New Civil Rights Movement. He has dedicated his adult life to the betterment of his community & our nation as a whole. The Bronx native was raised in a devout Christian household. As a youth, Hawk succumbed to the temptations of his environment and dropped out of high school. With the love and support of his family, mentors and athletic ability he was able to push forward and obtain a GED, Bachelors of Science, and law degree.

After graduating from Concordia College, Hawk worked for the Honorable Robert T. Johnson at the Bronx County Office of the District Attorney, as a paralegal, then as Special Projects Coordinator. As the DA’s liaison to the community, he worked with N.Y.C.H.A tenants’ associations and social service organizations throughout the Bronx. In his spare time, he organized drives to send medical supplies to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

Hawk joined Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP as a project manager overseeing efforts in the law firm’s 22 national and international offices. During this period, Hawk founded the Bronx Sharks an athletic club that has sent numerous at risk youths to college on scholarship. Hawk went on to follow his childhood dream of attending law school. Hawk attended the prestigious Howard University Law School in Washington, DC. and completed his Jurist Doctorate at Touro Law School in Long Island, NY. After which he ran for City Council for the Bronx district where he grew up.

Throughout his life Hawk has engaged in protests and activities to combat injustice. Over the past few years, he has worked tirelessly leading protests and seeking justice for the families of those slain by overzealous police officers. Hawk a founding BLMgreaterNY. The organization is one of the most disruptive groups in the country and are continuously fighting against anti-blackness. Not only has he helped victims of police brutality, he works with members of LGBT community, victims of the human trafficking, the mental health community, founded Black Lives Caucus. The caucus was the first group in NYC to endorse Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Hawk has been quoted in the NYTimes and The Wall Street Journal.

Rev. Dr Lai Fan Wong

Rev. Dr. Lai Fan Wong is the lead pastor of New York Chinese Baptist Church, member of ABC MNY Board of the Directors and lecturer at New York Theological Educational Center. She is an ABC endorsed pastoral counselor and chaplain.

Rev. Dr. Jerrolyn Eulinberg

The Rev. Dr. Jerrolyn Eulinberg is a graduate of Chicago Theological Seminary with a Doctor of Philosophy in theology and ethics. Her dissertation is entitled – A Lynched Black Wall Street: A Womanist Perspective on Terrorism, Religion, and Black Resilience of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre. She earned her Master of Divinity from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University. Rev. Eulinberg is an itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. She served Greater A.M.E. Church in Chicago as associate minister for the previous nine years. As a ministerial professional she served as project director at Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference for two national Lilly Endowment Initiatives – “Economic Challenges facing Pastoral Leaders” designed to address financial challenges and “Called to Lives of Meaning and Purpose,” designed to provide a space for church congregations to more critically discern their vocational callings and address issues of injustice.

Dr. Eulinberg focuses, through a womanist lens, on social injustice and the discrimination that continues to pervade this so-called “post racial” America. As scholar, theologian, and community activist she is concerned with the structural racism which pervades the oppressive social structures in society. Her research interests include how race, gender, and class function at the intersection of terrorism, politics, economics, Health, and law in our society. Her guiding inquiries raises these questions: how do the structures of society continue to inscribe oppression and suffering in the life experiences of African American people? What is the social role and ecclesial response to this injustice? Rev. Dr. Eulinberg is an independent scholar working on her first book.

 Rev. Marvin A. McMickle, Ph.D.

Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1948, Rev. Marvin A. McMickle is a 1970 graduate of Aurora University where he earned a B.A. in Philosophy. He earned a Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and completed two additional years of graduate study at Columbia University in NewYork City. He earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and was awarded the Doctor of Philosophy degree (Ph.D.) from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio in 1998. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from his Alma Mater, Aurora University, in 1990 and was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio, in 2010.

Dr. McMickle served as the 12th President of Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester, New York from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2019. Prior to joining CRCDS he was pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio from 1987 to 2011 and a member of the Board of Trustees of Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. McMickle was also the Professor of Homiletics at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio, from 1996 to 2011. Upon retiring from Ashland, the faculty named him Professor Emeritus. He is the author of 15 books and dozens of articles that regularly appear in professional journals and magazines. His writings also appear in Feasting on the Word and Preaching God’s Transforming Justice two recent preaching commentaries. He is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. International Board of Preachers at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and has also served as a Visiting Professor of Preaching at Yale University Divinity School. Dr. McMickle is currently the Director of the Doctor of Ministry Program at CRCDS.

Dana Seville

Dana Seville born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. She is a member of Berean Baptist Church. Dana is a role model and leader amongst her peers who unapologetically loves Christ. She enjoys spending time with family & friends, dancing, and trying new foods. Dana unselfishly serves in the Youth Ministry, Ministry of Sacred Dance, and works closely with leadership on the Log College Project and Arts on a mission. If Dana is not busy at work or at school, you can certainly find her spending much of her time at church. Dana is currently a rising sophomore at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts as an International Relations Major.