Community 2020 Forum

BACKGROUND ON THE SEMINAR

This Seminar, the second in the Community 2020 series, explored the future challenges and opportunities presented by the changing demographics of America's communities. The speakers examined how, in an increasingly multi-ethnic and multi-racial society, policies can be developed to foster access, mobility & opportunity in America's communities.

The seminar's goal was to contribute to the larger discussion of race relations initiated by President Clinton. Specifically, the seminar focused on the following core question: How, within the context of housing issues, can government, community-based organizations and the private sector work in partnership to further integrate cities and metropolitan areas across racial and ethnic lines?

This seminar addressed the future of race relations in America's cities, especially how people can live and work together across racial and ethnic lines.

Randall Kennedy is a Professor at Harvard University Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, freedom of expression, and the regulations of race relations. He has written numerous articles for scholarly journals and magazines for the general public, and is the author of the recently published book, Race,Crime, and the Law. Mr. Kennedy is also a member of the American Law Institute, a member of the editorial boards of The Nation, Dissent, and the American Prospect, and trustee of Princeton University, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court.

Hugh Price was appointed President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League on July 1, 1994. Since his graduation from Yale Law School in 1966, Hugh Price has served as a social advocate in many venues, including Vice President at the Rockefeller Foundation, where he was responsible for managing domestic initiatives in education for at-risk youth and for overseeing the Foundation's program to increase minority opportunities in the United States. Price served as the first Executive Director of the Black Coalition of New Haven, was a partner in Cogen Holt and Associates, an urban affairs consulting firm in New Haven, served as a member of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, and for six years was Senior Vice President of WNET/Thirteen, a public television station in New York City. Mr. Price's articles have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times.

Linda Chavez-Thompson was elected Executive Vice President of the AFL-CIO on October 25, 1995 at the federation's convention in New York, part of an insurgent campaign to reinvigorate the American labor movement. A second generation American of Mexican decent, Chavez-Thompson has twenty-nine years experience in the labor movement. She rose from the organizing ranks of her union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, to become the first person of color elected to an executive office of the AFL-CIO. She is the highest ranking woman in the labor movement. Prior to her election as Executive Vice President, Chavez-Thompson served as Vice President of the AFL-CIO from August 3, 1993, and as Vice President of AFSCME from June 1988 through June 1996.

Karen Narasaki is the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC), a non profit, non partisan organization. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., its mission is to advance the legal and civil rights of Asian Pacific Americans through litigation, advocacy, public education and public policy development. Ms. Narasaki also serves as a Chairperson of the Compliance/Enforcement Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and is Chairperson of the National Network Against Anti-Asian Violence. Before joining NAPALC, Ms. Narasaki was the Washington, D.C. Representative for the Japanese American Citizens league (JACL), the nation's largest Asian American civil rights organization. Prior to that she was a corporate attorney at Perkins Cole in Seattle, Washington, and she served as a Law Clerk to Judge Harry Pregerson on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Los Angeles.

Transcript