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Congresswoman Diane E. Watson, born in
Los Angeles, is a lifetime resident of California’s 33rd Congressional
District, which includes Culver City, portions of the City of Los
Angeles, and unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.
Representative Watson attended Birdie Lee Bright
Elementary School (formerly 36th Street School), Foshay Junior High
School, and Dorsey High School. After graduating from High School,
Congresswoman Watson attended Los Angeles City College and matriculated
at UCLA, where she received a B.A. in Education. She also holds a M.A.
in School Psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, and
a Ph.D. in Educational Administration from the Claremont Graduate
School.
Her lifetime commitment to education stems from her
involvement in the Los Angeles public schools where she worked as an
elementary school teacher and school psychologist. She has lectured at
both California State Universities at Los Angeles and Long Beach.
In 1975, Congresswoman Watson became the first
African-American woman to be elected to the Los Angeles Unified School
District Board of Education. Her legacy there includes efforts to expand
school integration and toughen academic standards.
The year 1978 marked her election to the California
State Senate where she was chosen to chair, from 1981 to 1998, the
Senate Health and Human Services Committee. She also served on the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
During her tenure in the California State Senate,
Congresswoman Watson became a statewide and national advocate for health
care, consumer protection, women, and children. In 1993, she authored
the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program Act, which led to
pioneering research into the causes of birth defects, and the
Residential Care Facilities Act, to ensure that senior citizens receive
quality care in nursing and assisted living homes. In 1997, she
introduced legislation to toughen food health safety requirements for
restaurants. She also played a key role in the enactment of legislation
to promote breast cancer research.
Congresswoman Watson has been an advocate for
commonsense welfare reform in the State of California. She played a
major role in formulating the State of California's TANF program, which
provides education, child care, and employment to welfare recipients.
She sought funding to help teen mothers complete their education and
gain jobs through the Cal-Learn program.
In 1999, President William Jefferson Clinton appointed
Congresswoman Watson to serve as the United States Ambassador to the
Federated States of Micronesia. Watson served in this capacity until
2001 when she returned to California to run for Congress in a special
election held on June 5, 2001, after the death of Congressman Julian
Dixon. She was reelected on November 5, 2002 to a full two year term and
has served in each succeeding Congress.
Congresswoman Watson is a member of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee and serves on the Subcommittee on Africa and Global
Health and the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Environment. She
is also a member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
and its Subcommittee on Domestic Policy.
Congresswoman Watson is Chair of the Congressional
Entertainment Industries Caucus and co-chairs the Congressional Korea
Caucus and the U.S.-UK Caucus. She is also a Democratic Regional Whip
for Southern California. |
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Key Note Speaker:
Congresswoman Diane E. Watson |
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Beverly J. Glover is a renowned personality
in the Oklahoma City community. She was the primary anchor of the
first Saturday morning newscast in the Oklahoma City television market
and, for nearly ten years, produced and hosted weekly minority affairs
talk shows (“Saturday Review”, ”Sunday Review”, and “Oklahoma Collage”)
at KOCO-TV 5, the local ABC-TV affiliate.
For the last nine years, she has served in
a number of Human Resources management roles at Johnson Controls
(formerly York International) in Norman where she now has responsibility
for Learning and Development and for the diversity initiative of her
business unit.
Currently, Ms. Glover is President of the
Board of Directors of BLAC, Inc., a fine arts presenting organization
where she has chaired the annual Charlie Christian International Jazz
Festival a number of times over the past several years. |
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Master of Ceremonies
Beverly Glover |
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Phyllis Been, Is a member of the OK
Choctaw Tribal Alliance, Inc. She is the Board Chairman and holds the
office of Position 4 Board Member. |
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Ms. Phyllis Been |
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Kendra Taira Field is
completing her doctorate in History at New York University. Her
dissertation narrates the migration and settlement of African Americans
from Mississippi and Arkansas to Indian Territory between 1870 to 1920.
With author David Levering Lewis, Kendra has edited the forthcoming
single-volume biography of W.E.B. Du Bois. Next year she will serve as
the Thurgood Marshall Fellow at Dartmouth College. Kendra also
holds a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard University's Kennedy
School of Government and a B.A. from Williams College.
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Ms. Kendra Field,
(Featured
graduate student) New York University |
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Brenda Golden was born at the Indian Hospital in Clinton, Oklahoma but
was raised on her family's original allotment outside of
Clearview, Oklahoma. She is of the Raccoon (Wotko) Clan of
Alabama Quassarte stompground at Wetumka and Creek Chapel
Methodist Church at Clearview. Her mother is full blood Mvskoke but did
not teach her children their native language.
Golden's mother is a
product of the forced Boarding School Experience of Seneca Indian
School. Ms. Golden attended Sequoyah High School, an all Indian
boarding school that was run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs then, now
it's operated by the Cherokee Nation.
After she served in the USAF and
Oklahoma Air National Guard she earned a Bachelor's degree in Marketing
from the
University of Oklahoma and returned to achieve a Masters of
Business Administration from the
University of Oklahoma some years later. Golden is currently
employed by a tribal nation in the state of Oklahoma and continues to
advocate for human rights, civil rights, justice and tribal
sovereignty. |
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Ms. Brenda Golden, Muscogee
Creek Tribal member |
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Dr. Howard is an associate professor of
anthropology specializing in cultural anthropology. She received her
Ph.D. from the University of Florida in 1999. Her primary focus of
research is in the studies of the African Diaspora with a focus on the
Caribbean region. Her topical interests include: Race, Ethnohistory,
Oral History, Cultural Identity, and the interrelationships of African
and Indigenous peoples in the Americas and the Caribbean.
Dr. Howard's research has focused on
the historical relationships of Seminole Indians and Black Seminoles,
and their present-day descendants in Florida and The Bahamas. Among her
publications is the book entitled Black Seminoles in the Bahamas, which
is based upon research that she conducted while living in the community
of Red Bays, Andros Island, Bahamas for one year. Other recent
publications include, The "Wild Indians" of Andros Island: Black
Seminole Legacy in The Bahamas (Journal of Black Studies), and Social
Capital, Health and HIV Awareness of Girls in a Rural Caribbean
Community (International Electronic Journal of Health Education).
Her latest research involves an
interdisciplinary project titled "Looking for Angola," a maroon
community formerly located near Sarasota, Florida that potentially has
direct connections to the Bahamian Black Seminole descendants on Andros
Island. Her research about the existence of the Black Seminoles' pathway
to freedom in the Bahamas will become part of "The Slave Route," a
project mapping the African Diaspora that is being conducted by UNESCO
(United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in
Paris. Dr. Howard has been at UCF since 1999 and teaches General
Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Peoples of the World, Anthropology
of Diaspora, Caribbean Cultures, Language and Culture, Ethnographic
Field Methods, and Black/Seminole Relations. |
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Professor Rosalyn Howard,
Associate
professor of anthropology
(Not in Attendance,
Screening of her 60 min film by
Mrs. Frezonia Cudjoe, Descendant of the
Seminole Nation) |
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Mr. Ron Graham,
Genealogist/Vice President of the Descendants of Freedmen |
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Ms. Gail Jackson,
Genealogist |
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Connie Johnson is a native of Oklahoma,
born in Holdenville in 1952. Lived in Dustin, Idabel, and came to
Oklahoma City in 1958. She attended Creston Hills Elementary, John F.
Kennedy Jr. High, and Douglass Sr. High.
Connie is a member of the Church of the
Living God, Temple 39.
A Democrat since the age of 13, when she
founded the Eastside Oklahoma City Teen Democrats Club, Connie later
worked on the 18-year old vote while attending the University of
Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
She has a BS in Education. She graduated
from Penn and returned to Oklahoma where she worked as a Public
Information and Training Officer for the Oklahoma Community Action
Director's Association, and as Public Service Employment Coordinator for
the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA).
Connie served as a member of the National
Conference of State Legislatures Executive Committee and Legislative
Staff Steering Committee where she chaired the Task Force on Diversity
and produced "Tips Booklet", a guide for legislators to assist them in
achieving diversity among legislative staff. In 1995, she was selected
to train the parliamentary staffs of six African countries in
legislative staffing in the democratic system of Government.
Connie has been a presenter on legislation
and the legislative process to groups in the community and throughout
the state and nation, including NCSL, Inaugural Health Symposium, and
the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome group. She has used her knowledge and
skills to assist people to access the legislative process at the state
level as a solution to their problems at the local level.
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Senator Connie Johnson |
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Mr.
Linzy is married and has two children. He was born in Oklahoma City and
attended public schools. His earliest interest as a child focused on law
enforcement and community development. During his high school years he
participated in the Oklahoma City Police Explorers Post and rose to the
ranks of Chief, serving three consecutive terms. He studied piano as a
child and through his sophomore year at the Univ. of Oklahoma in Norman,
OK while serving as youth minister of music and organist at the church
of his youth.
He completed undergraduate studies at Central State Univ.
in Edmond, OK while pursuing a career in law enforcement with the
Oklahoma Dept. of Human Services and later transferred to the social
work division. In 1992 he accepted his first appointment in the areas of
public finance as a fiscal analyst with the Oklahoma Office of State
Finance serving under the administration of both Governor David Walters
and Governor Frank Keating.
For a short time afterward he served as
finance officer for the Office of the Oklahoma State Attorney General
and then served as the disaster financial manager for the Oklahoma
Department of Emergency Management, the state companion agency to FEMA.
After twenty-six years of state service, he turned his focus towards
community and economic development through his private sector commitment
and his candidacy to become a member of the Oklahoma State House of
Representative. He ran unsuccessfully in 2006 and afterward sought
furtherance of his commitment to political advocacy as a congressional
staff representative.
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Willard B. Linzy |
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Representative Reginald Meeks has represented the 42nd House District
(Jefferson County) since 2001. He is the Associate Director of
Development at the University of Louisville and Adjunct Professor at
McKendree College. Representative Meeks received his B.A. from Wabash
College and his J.D. from the University of Iowa College of Law.
He also
has pending a Ph.D. from the University of Louisville. Representative
Meeks is a member of the National Conference of State Legislatures;
National Black Caucus of State Legislators; Kentucky Association of
Blacks in Higher Education; Leadership Kentucky, Charter Class Member;
Honorary Member, Sunshine Seniors; Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels;
National Association of Black Scuba Divers; Kentucky Association of
Black Scuba Divers, Founding Member; Kentucky Native American Heritage
Commission; and Kentucky Polar Bear Club.
In addition, Representative
Meeks has been named to Who's Who Among Emerging Leaders In America;
Outstanding Young Men of America; Who's Who Among Black Americans; and
Who's Who in the South. He has also received the Y.M.C.A. Adult Achiever
Award and been named by Ebony Magazine one of their Fifty Young
Future Leaders; and by Louisville Magazine one of their People to
Watch.
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Kentucky State
Representative, Attorney
Reginald K. Meeks |
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Jon Velie received his Bachelor of Arts
Degree in Native American Studies from the University of California at
Berkeley in 1989 and graduated from the University of Oklahoma College
of Law in 1993.
He is a member of the Bar of the United States Supreme
Court, Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, U.S. District Court for the
Northern, Eastern and Western districts of Oklahoma, Anadarko Court of
Indian Offenses, Absentee Shawnee Tribal Court and Oklahoma Supreme
Court. |
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Attorney Jon Velie |
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Gary Zellar received both his B.A. and M.A.
in history at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He did
his doctoral work in the Race and Ethnicity of the American West under
Elliott West at the University of Arkansas, and worked closely with
Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., one of the pioneers in the study of
African-Indian relations at the Native American Press Archives at the
University of Arkansas-Little Rock. His dissertation, “‘If I Ain’t One,
You Won’t Find Another One Here:’ Race, Identity, Citizenship and Land:
The African Creek Experience in the Indian Territory, 1830-1910,” won
both the Oklahoma Historical Society’s 2004 award for the best
dissertation and the Phi Alpha Theta /Westerners International award for
the best dissertation in History of the American West for 2004.
His
African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation was published by the
University of Oklahoma in 2007. In addition, Zellar has published
several articles and given numerous presentations dealing with the
history of the estelvste. He is currently teaching as an adjunct history
instructor for Montgomery College and Angelina College in Texas and is
at work on a manuscript dealing with the Civil War in the Indian
Territory.
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Dr, Gary Zellar, Author of
African Creeks |
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