Bob Abernethy

Bob Abernethy is Executive Editor and Host of the PBS television program Religion&Ethics NewsWeekly, which he developed and which this year began its 15th season on the air.  The much-honored half-hour news magazine covers all major religions and denominations and all major expressions of spirituality in American life.

Abernethy is also the co-editor, with William Bole, of The Life of Meaning,  published in 2007, which is composed of excerpts from many of the insightful and eloquent observations about religious belief and practice made by men and women profiled on the program.

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Carroll Baltimore

Dr. Baltimore is currently the nineteenth (19) President of the Progressive National
Baptist Convention, Inc.  Since 1973 he has served faithfully in all levels of the convention.
He has served as the National Chairman, Evangelism Board and 1st Vice President of the
Eastern Region, PNBC and served as a member of the Education and Publications Board.

•    Senior Pastor, International Community Baptist Churches.
•    Planted 30 churches in the Philippines, Africa, Jamaica, India and Korea.
•    Over 40 years he has ministered to people of different nationalities and cultures.
•    Organized and participated in 62 international crusades crossing cultural barriers.

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Tony Campolo

Tony Campolo is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Eastern University in St. Davids, Pennsylvania. He previously served for ten years on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Eastern College and earned a Ph.D. from Temple University.

Founder and President of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE), Dr. Campolo has worked to create, nurture and support programs for “at-risk” children in cities across North America, and has helped establish schools and universities in several developing countries.

Dr. Campolo is a media commentator on religious, social and political matters, having guested on television programs like The Colbert Report, Nightline, Crossfire, Politically Incorrect, The Charlie Rose Show, Larry King Live, CNN Dayside, CNN News and MSNBC News. He co-hosted his own television series, Hashing It Out, on the Odyssey Network, and presently hosts Across The Pond, a weekly program on the Premier Christian Radio Network in England. He is also a highly respected and sought after guest on radio stations across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

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Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter - 39th President of the United States and Founder of The Carter Center

Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter Jr.), 39th president of the United States, was born Oct. 1, 1924, in the small farming town of Plains, Ga., and grew up in the nearby community of Archery. His father, James Earl Carter Sr., was a farmer and businessman and his mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, a registered nurse.

He was educated in the public school of Plains, attended Georgia Southwestern College and the Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a Bachelor of Science degree from the United States Naval Academy in 1946. In the Navy, he became a submariner, serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets and rising to the rank of lieutenant. Chosen by Admiral Hyman Rickover for the nuclear submarine program, he was assigned to Schenectady, N.Y., where he took graduate work at Union College in reactor technology and nuclear physics, and served as senior officer of the pre-commissioning crew of the Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine.

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Rosalynn Carter

Rosalynn Carter - Former First Lady of the United States and Founder of The Carter Center

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has worked for more than three decades to improve the quality of life for people around the world.  Today, she is an advocate for mental health, caregiving, early childhood immunization, human rights, and conflict resolution through her work at The Carter Center in Atlanta, Ga.  The Center is a private, nonprofit institution founded by former President and Mrs. Jimmy Carter in 1982.

A full partner with the president in all the Center's activities, the former first lady is a member of the Carter Center board of trustees.  She created and chairs the Carter Center's Mental Health Task Force, an advisory body of experts, consumers, and advocates promoting positive change in the mental health field.  Each year, she hosts the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy, bringing together leaders of the nation's mental health organizations to address critical issues.  Mrs. Carter emerged as a driving force for mental health when, during the Carter administration, she became active honorary chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health, which resulted in passage of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980.  

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Dee Dee Coleman

Reverend Dr. DeeDee M. Coleman, a native New Orleanian who now resides in Oak Park, Michigan is the Pastor of the Russell Street Missionary Baptist Church. In November 1999, Russell Street, which is the oldest church on the North End of the city stepped out on faith and for the first time in its history, called Reverend DeeDee M. Coleman as its first female pastor. This preaching and teaching woman of God brings a vision, a plan and the Spirit to move Russell Street forward in the Lord.

Reverend Coleman has been in the ministry since 1963, ordained as a Deacon in October, 1988; granted her license to Preach in October, 1990; and received Full Ordination to the Ministry in July 1993, all under the leadership of The Reverend Dr. Charles G. Adams, Senior Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan.

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Ken Fong

Senior Pastor, Evergreen Baptist Church of Los Angeles (Rosemead, CA)

Born and raised in NorCal, Ken moved to LA in 1978 when he transferred from ABSW (Berkeley) to Fuller Seminary (Pasadena). He thought he’d finish up in a couple of years and move back but God had other plans for him. He would earn his M.Div. in theology in 1981 and his D.Min. in Asian American church growth nine years later.

Once in LA, he met his future wife and future church. He married Sharon (“Snoopy”) Uyeda in 1981 and began that same year as Associate Pastor of Evergreen Baptist Church when it was still in East LA. In 2011 they celebrated 30 years of marriage and of serving EBCLA as a pastor.  

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Wendell Griffen

Judge Wendell L. Griffen was born September 23, 1952, in Prescott, Arkansas, and grew up near Delight (Pike County), Arkansas. He attended Rosenwald Elementary near Delight and Simmons High School in Okolona before graduating in 1968 from Delight High School. He is a 1973 graduate from the University of Arkansas where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. From May 17, 1973, to July 31, 1976, Judge Griffen served in the United States Army, attaining the rank of 1st Lieutenant before his honorable discharge.

Judge Griffen attended the University of Arkansas School of Law from August 1976 through May 1979, when he received the Juris Doctor degree. While in law school he served in the Student Bar Association, was president of the Black Law Student Association, and was a member and Associate Editor of the Arkansas Law Review. He was awarded the first Silas Hunt Memorial Justice Award presented by the Black Law Student Association in memory of Silas Hunt, the first black law student admitted to an institution of higher education below the Mason Dixon line, in 1979.

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Stephen Thurston

Reverend Stephen John Thurston was elected the 14th President of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. on September 4, 2003.  He served as the 3rd Vice-President of the National Baptist Convention of America, Inc. (NBCA) from 1989 until 2003.  Under the stewardship of President E. Edward Jones,
Rev. Thurston was elected the youngest (age 37) 3rd Vice-President in the history of the Convention.  Prior to serving as 3rd Vice-President, he served for three years as Corresponding Secretary of the NBCA, Inc.  In January 2005, he, along with the other Presidents gave leadership to the 1st Joint Winter Board Meeting of the National Baptist Conventions.  In January 2008 they convened for their 2nd Joint Winter Board Meeting along with the New Baptist Covenant.

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Marian Wright Edelman

Marian Wright Edelman, founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF), has been an advocate for disadvantaged Americans for her entire professional life.  Under her leadership, CDF has become the nation’s strongest voice for children and families.  The Children's Defense Fund’s Leave No Child Behind® mission is to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

Mrs. Edelman, a graduate of Spelman College and Yale Law School, began her career in the mid-60s when, as the first black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, she directed the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund office in Jackson, Mississippi.  In l968, she moved to Washington, D.C., as counsel for the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. began organizing before his death.  She founded the Washington Research Project, a public interest law firm and the parent body of the Children's Defense Fund.  For two years she served as the Director of the Center for Law and Education at Harvard University and in l973 began CDF.

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