Speaker

Author of the international best-seller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, Jeremy Scahill is a frequent contributor to The Nation magazine and a correspondent for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now!

Former Black Panther, Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal is am accomplished poet, musician and visual artist, and Founding Director of Tanzania's United African Alliance Community Center (UAACC), a community-based organization which promotes community development in rural Africa. The UAACC has a number of independent media projects as part of its powerful community work including hip hop, music production, photography, videography, poetry, theater and the development of an independent radio station. Four decades after leaving this country for exile in Tanzania, Mama Charlotte Hill O'Neal returns to share the inspirational story of how she and her husband's past as Black Panthers affects their work among the urban and village youth of East Africa and America.

Join the Sanctuary in welcoming author Scott Christianson for a multimedia presentation and spirited public discussion on the life and amazing rescue of captured fugitive slave, Charles Nalle. In an almost unimaginable act - and the most dramatic slave rescue in American history - Nalle was forcibly liberated by Harriet Tubman and hundreds of protesters on April 27, 1860 in our own Troy, New York.

(Update: Artist Mark Priest will no longer be able to attend this event. Sorry for the last-minute change!)

In his book, Christianson follows Nalle from his enslavement in Virginia through his escape via the Underground Railroad to his experiences in the North on the eve of the Civil War. Christianson also presents a richly detailed look at slavery culture in antebellum Virginia, and probes the deepest political and psychological aspects of this epic tale. His account underscores fundamental questions about racial inequality, the rule of law, civil disobedience, and violent resistance to slavery in the antebellum North and South.

Join us before this event, at 6:00 p.m., for a potluck! We'll share food, stories, and information!

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Nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize, peace activist Kathy Kelly offers an eye witness account and a message of hope through creative non-violence. 

Built around tangible community responses to the casualties of war, this multi-media event networks members of the local peace, justice, Iraqi refugee, veteran, and artist communities.

During the event, Kathy Kelly and the audience will view a screening premiere of local digital stories, and then have a dialogue with their creators.  Groups featured include:

--the Iraqi refugee immigrant young women with Iraqi Children's Art Exchange and Iraqi Family Project

--Women Against War

--Schenectady Unitarians Social Action group

--Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace

We will also be introduced to the Fort Drum Soldiers Billboard project, and artist Suzanne Opton.

This coalition-building program is part of the nationwide Peaceable Assembly Campaign, which seeks an end to the U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

6:30- 7:00  Nina Berman Artist Reception (sponsored by the Honest Weight Food Coop)

Join us during this artist's reception, and have an opportunity to view this great exhibition and meet Nina personally before the event begins!

7:00- 9:00 Nina Berman multi-media presentation and conversation with Kathy Kelly, followed by a poetry reading by Albany Veterans for Peace

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Acclaimed photo-journalist Nina Berman, internationally known for her photographs of wounded American military, will share a multi-media presentation and discuss her exhibit "Evidence and Fantasy: Militarism in American Life" with legendary peace activist Kathy Kelly. Berman will discuss work from her series "Purple Hearts," "Marine Wedding," and "Homeland."

The Sanctuary for Independent Media and Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace welcome filmmaker Joe Stillman and Iraq Veterans Against the War co-founder Jimmy Massey for a screening of the new documentary "From Mills River to Babylon and Back... The Jimmy Massey Story."

Former Staff Sergeant Jimmy Massey, a 12-year Marine veteran, served in Iraq in 2003. He witnessed—and in some cases participated in—the killing of innocent civilians. The Iraqis “were just doing their normal routines,” he says, “and they were getting frickin’ blasted for it.” He began to speak out to his superiors and was eventually diagnosed with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He won an honorable discharge in December 2003

Bill Ayers, the former Weatherman-turned-professor (at the University of Illinois in Chicago), was best known for his lifelong commitment to social justice before being drawn into a Republican smear campaign directed at presidential candidate Barack Obama.  Race Course Against White Supremacy, the new book he wrote with wife Bernardine Dohrn (noted Northwestern law professor,  head of the Children and Family Justice Center in Chicago, and also a former leader of the Weatherman), should cement their reputation as two of the country's preeminent progressive thinkers. As pundits ponder the Obama presidency's impact on racism, the veteran political activists argue that white supremacy is alive and well in the United States. The two will discuss how systemic racial inequality in the criminal justice system, education, and housing illustrate the powerful pull of bigotry in our country.

Our press release:

Robert Hillary King became a member of the Black Panther Party while in prison for a crime he did not commit, where he remained in solitary confinement for 29 years as one of the Angola 3. He wrote From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King after the state admitted his innocence and set him free.  Co-sponsored by the Albany Political Prisoner Support Coalition.

Our press release:

 30 Years in Solitary Confinement and Found Innocent;
 Robert Hillary King to Speak in Troy

Iraqi–American digital artist Wafaa Bilal’s new book “Shoot an Iraqi: Life, Art and Resistance Under the Gun” tells the story of the Domestic Tension project that placed him 24/7 on the receiving end of a paintball gun accessible online to a global audience—and what really happened on his infamous visit to Troy NY last spring.  He's returning to Troy to talk about his experiences and the new book.

Missed the controversy last year?  See the photos and watch the oniine documentary!

Our press release:

"Virtual Jihadi" artist returns to Capital Region with new book;
 Wafaa Bilal braves fear of RPI/Troy censorship to speak again!