Opening Keynote: Margaret Washington: The African American Experience. Professor Margaret Washington, Cornell authority on the black experience. Recent work: Sojourner Truth's America.  Articles include, From Motives of Delicacy: Sexuality and Morality in the Narratives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs, Journal of African American History, and Rachel Weeping for Her Children.

9:30 a.m.

Presentation: Rev, Dr. Louis DeCaro, Jr.: John Brown, A Man of His Times, Assistant Professor of History at Theology at Alliance Theological Seminary, works include the collection of essays John Brown Remembered, and books John Brown--the Cost of Freedom, and Fire from the Midst of You: A Religious Life of John Brown

Kevin Bales. Author: Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy  (nominated for Pulitzer), Understanding Global Slavery and Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves. Expert on modern slavery, president of Free the Slaves, Board of Directors of the International Coca Initiative. 

Maria Suarez, a social worker and advocate to end human trafficking, who was sold into and lived in slavery in the United States for 5 years beginning when she was sixteen years old freed only when a neighbor killed her captor, but wrongly imprisoned for that death and eventually pardoned. 

1:00 p.m.

Panel: John Brown’s Legacy

Moderator: Russell Banks; Novels include: Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, both also critically-acclaimed movies; The Book of Jamaica Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone, a historical novel about abolitionist John Brown, Cloudsplitter, and The Darling. President of Cities of Refuge North America and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bank has taught at many colleges and universities including Princeton.

Panelists:

Kevin Bales. Author: Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, (nominated for Pulitzer), Understanding Global Slavery and Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves. Expert on modern slavery, president of Free the Slaves, Board of Directors of the International Coca Initiative.  

Bernardine Dohrn, activist, academic and child advocate, is Director of the Children and Family Justice Center and Clinical Associate Professor of the Northwestern University School Law, Bluhm Legal Clinic.  Dohrn was a national leader of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the Weather Underground, and was on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List for over a decade. 

George Holmes, executive director, chief operating officer, Congress of Racial Equality, Coordinated American delegation dispatched to observe and monitor free elections in Nigeria in 1996-97. Organized emergency response team to assist in the World Trade Center collapse.

Alice Keesey Mecoy. Great-great-great granddaughter of abolitionist John Brown has researched her family history for 30 years, especially the women in John Brown's life, dedicated to war against slavery. Presented her findings to the National Abolition Hall of Fame and Saratoga Historical Museum.

Margaret Washington. Cornell professor Margaret Washington is an authority on the black experience. Recent work: Sojourner Truth's America.  Articles include, From Motives of Delicacy: Sexuality and Morality in the Narratives of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Jacobs, Journal of African American History, and Rachel Weeping for Her Children

J.W. Wiley, Director for the Center for Diversity, Pluralism, and Inclusion at State University of New York - Plattsburgh and a lecturer in philosophy and minority studies. Works to implement strategies and policies for inclusion and diversity. 

3:30 p.m.

His Spirit Lives On

Invocation

Walk to the John Brown’s Grave

Laying of Wreath at John Brown’s Grave lead by Roy Innis, national chairman, C.O.R.E. and Natalie Ross, representing future generations.