Speaking from the Heart of the
New Civil Rights Movement
BAMN's dynamic, award-winning speakers offer riveting presentations on race, equality, integration, and civil rights. Whether you are programming a lecture series on social issues, training personnel to work in a diverse environment, or building inspiration for civil rights activism, BAMN speakers will challenge, enlighten, and excite your audience.
Featured in the Smithsonian Museum as the modern embodiment of the civil rights movement, BAMN has been a national leader in the 21st century fight for equality. Passionate in organizing for educational integration and equality, BAMN was instrumental in winning the 2003 Supreme Court Grutter decision that upheld affirmative action at the University of Michigan Law School. BAMN has organized across the country to defeat policies that entrench segregation, inequality and discrimination.
In today's climate of conservatism and resegregation, it's easy to feel discouraged about winning progressive change. BAMN speakers reinvigorate people - and organizations - with a spirit of hope and optimism and a renewed energy to campaign for change.
What BAMN Speakers Can Do for You
- Marshall Rose, Director, Office of Equity, Diversity and Immigration Services Bowling Green State University
Fluent in civil rights history, law, and activism, BAMN speakers can customize a presentation precisely to your program topic or create a talk based on your general area of interest. As debaters, they galvanize audiences with lively, informed, and eloquent arguments. A sample of their presentations includes:
- The state of affirmative action post-Grutter
- Continuing the fight for integration 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education
- Winning progressive change in a conservative climate
- Rebuilding the unions through the fight for civil rights
- No Child Left Behind: defending public K-12 education in the age of reform boards, charters, and privatization
- The fight for immigrant rights and educational issues of undocumented students
- Diversity training for unions, business, and government
Unique among Civil Rights Speakers
The BAMN Speakers' Bureau, like BAMN itself, is a thoroughly integrated
group of activists whose leadership includes both strong women and energetic
young people who have organized youth of all races across the country. BAMN
speakers are activists who can share their experience fighting - and
winning - critical civil rights campaigns. In addition to legal intervention
in the landmark Grutter decision, BAMN brought 50,000 people to demonstrate
on April 1, 2003 while the Supreme Court heard arguments on this historic
case. BAMN helped to defeat Ward Connerly's Proposition 54 in California and
prevented his antiaffirmative action referendum from reaching the Michigan
ballot in 2004. Activists in BAMN are also campaigning to maintain voters'
rights against elimination of elected school boards, resist the
privatization of public schools, and to win quality K-12 public education
for all students. BAMN speakers inspire audiences because they are actually
out there in the trenches, organizing youth and making change happen.
Listeners come away from BAMN presentations better informed and rejuvenated,
with a belief in their own personal potential to contribute to social
change.
Who's Who In the BAMN Speakers' Bureau
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The BAMN Speakers, L to R, top row: Candice Young, Miranda Massie, Yvette Felarca, Kate Stenvig. Bottom row: George Washington, Shanta Driver, Luke Massie, Tania Kappner. |
Shanta Driver, JD, is the National Director of United for Equality and Affirmative Action Legal Defense Fund, and was the legal architect of the successful student intervention into Grutter v Bollinger. Ms. Driver is also the Co-Chair and National Spokesperson for BAMN.
Yvette Felarca is BAMN's California Coordinator. A graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley, she serves as Senator on the ASUC, Berkeley's student government. Ms. Felarca also works as a substitute teacher in Oakland and has served as an Executive Board member and convention delegate for the Oakland Education Assoc.
Tania Kappner, a teacher in the Oakland, CA public schools, was a key witness in the trial of Grutter v. Bollinger. Ms. Kappner is a union steward in the Oakland Educational Association and has been re-elected eight times to be a convention delegate to the National Educational Association on a civil rights platform.
Luke Massie is the Co-Chairperson of BAMN. He led the Michigan and California mass organizing campaign in defense of affirmative action during the trial of Grutter v. Bollinger. He also directed the efforts that successfully defeated Ward Connerly's attempts to place an antiaffirmative action initiative on the ballot in Michigan.
Miranda Massie, JD, was lead counsel for the student intervenors in Grutter v. Bollinger. Ms. Massie is an honors graduate of Cornell University and the New York University School of Law and earned a Masters' degree in History and American Studies from Yale University. Ms. Massie has been active in organizing efforts for civil and reproductive rights, and educational equity throughout her career.
- Winston McGill, President, NAACP Portland Branch
Kate Stenvig is the leader of the BAMN chapter at the University of Michigan, where she is pursuing a Masters in Education. Ms. Stenvig has spearheaded the Defend Affirmative Action Party election campaigns for student assembly and led successful efforts to increase minority enrollment at UM and to end discriminatory practices against minority social activities at the student union.
George B. Washington, JD, a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, has practiced labor, employment and discrimination law for over 25 years. A member of the intervenors' legal team in Grutter, he was also lead attorney challenging the imposition of an appointed school board in Detroit, and represented BAMN in its legal challenge to Ward Connerly's anti-affirmative action ballot petition.
Candice Young founded a BAMN chapter when she was a junior at Huron
High School in Ann Arbor. She later created a BAMN chapter at Eastern
Michigan University, where she is currently an undergraduate. Ms. Young has
led BAMN's national outreach, addressing church congregations, union
memberships and student groups.
Where BAMN Has Spoken (partial listing)
Colleges and Universities
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Professional Organizations
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"Shanta Driver is one of the most compelling spokespersons in America today for the civil rights movement and Brown v Board of Education. People of all ages and points of view hear her gladly and are moved to action." - A. Knighton Stanley, Minister Peoples Congregational Church of Christ, Washington, DC |
Call or email today to schedule a dynamic, unforgettable presentation for your event!
Donna Stern, Coordinator
313-438-3748
donnastern@bamn.com
BAMN
PO Box 24834
Detroit, MI 48224
