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	Allison Adelle Hedge Coke was named the Writer of the Year in Poetry in 2005 by the Wordcraft Circle of Native Writers and Storytellers. She descends from moundbuilders and is of Cherokee, Huron, Creek, French Canadian, Lorraine, Portuguese, English, Scot and Irish ascendents. Her latest book, Blood Run, is dedicated to the mound builders of many nations. She is a professor at the University of Nebraska, Kearney. Has authored and edited many works, including Dog Road Woman; edited From the Fields, an anthology of writing by migrant and rural children in California; Off-Season City Pipe; and Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer, a memoir. She performs readings, workshops and lectures and Youth-at-Risk education. She created an online mentorship project in literary arts for incarcerated youth in South Dakota.
	Ibrahim Aoudé, Ph.D., is author of "Lebanon: Dynamics of Conflict." He is also editor of two books, "The Ethnic Studies Story: Politics and Social Movements in Hawaii," about the ethnic populations impacted by global forces and their resistance, and "Public Policy and Globalization in Hawaii." A frequent traveler to the Middle East and a University of Hawaii professor, Prof. Aoudé writes and lectures about Palestian youth in the struggle of the Palestinian people, the politics of oil, and what the U.S. government's role in the Middle East means for Americans. He is author of several articles on Arab Americans, Middle East politics, and Hawaii's political economy.
	General Gordon Baker, Jr., is an internationally known labor leader, and autoworker who has championed the cause of the unemployed and unorganized for independent political representation for over 30 years. He was the first American to refuse the Vietnam draft; his case was a landmark in draft resistance, symbolizing the beginning of the anti-war movement. He is legendary for his role in leading Black autoworkers in the 1960s Detroit wildcat strikes against automakers and discriminatory union leaders. The revolutionary ideas of this period inspired Black factory workers throughout America. The book, Detroit: I Do Mind Dying (about the worker revolts of that era) calls General Baker the "soul of the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement" (the driving force behind the strikes.) Baker ran for statewide political office in Michigan; led in the statewide effort to support Detroit's homeless tent city; was part of the North American delegation to the 7th Pan-African Congress in Uganda, and he has addressed many other international gatherings. He is chair of the Standing Committee of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America.
	William Blum, author, "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions SinceWorld War II" left the State Department in 1967, abandoning his aspiration of becoming a Foreign Service Officer because of his opposition to U.S. policy in Vietnam. He became one of the founders and editors of the Washington Free Press, the first "alternative" newspaper in the capital. Blum has been a freelance journalist in the U.S., Europe and South America. His stay in Chile in 1972-3, writing about the Allende government's "socialist experiment" and its tragic overthrow in a CIA-designed coup, instilled in him a personal involvement and heightened interest in what his government was doing in various parts of the world. He worked in London with former CIA officer Philip Agee and his associates on their project of exposing CIA personnel and their misdeeds. His talks convey an understanding of US foreign policy -- it's hypocrisy, the great harm it inflicts upon the world, and its motivations.
	Ronald Casanova is the author of "Each One Teach One, Up and Out of Poverty: Memoirs of a Street Activist." His life is a dramatic tale of struggle for survival. His story illuminates some major events in the struggle against poverty, including the "police riot" at Tompkin's Square, New York, the "Housing Now" march of the homeless in Washington, DC, and community takeovers of housing in Kansas City, New York, and Philadelphia. His presentations emphasize the need for the poverty stricken to become leaders in social transformation. He speaks to the role of art in the process of developing consciousness and empowerment.
	Maria Elena Castellanos is an immigration lawyer and anti-death penalty activist. From her home in Texas,"the execution capital of the country," she has mobilized thousands against the state's wave of executions. This includes the famous case where Ricardo Aldape Guerra, a young Mexican immigrant, freed from death row, and when 10,000 immigrants tied up traffic on the border in protest of unequal application of justice in the execution of Ramon Montoya, a Mexican citizen. Castellanos has a background going back to the civil rights movement.