Using Storytelling for Social Justice

An Applied Storytelling Panel

On Saturday, November 14 from 3-4:30pm, Andy Davis—storyteller and peace activist—moderates a panel of experts who have successfully used storytelling to shine a light on social justice issues.  Panelists will discuss how to make a peaceful, sustainable, compassionate society irresistible through a mighty stream of stories. With examples drawn from the fields of education, the law, and grassroots organizing, they will bring the possibilities of socially-engaged narrative alive through examples, followed by a session for Q&A and an optional breakout session for participants to brainstorm ideas for on the ground practical application in their own lives.

 

Judith Black—“’Fire, Flood, and Draught, Oh My!’:  Responding to the new Oz with Story”

Ilene Evans—“Building Platforms for Civil Discourse”

Robert Shetterly—“’Narrative Activism’: Inspired by the Past, Inspired for the Future”

Steven Hobbs—“Telling Stories of Small Injustices – Or Cases Ben Crump Won’t Take”

Andy Davis lives his life trying to balance the pursuits of truth and beauty through political activism and storytelling. For 20 years he has co-directed an oasis for freethinkers and change-makers, the World Fellowship Center, a peace and justice-oriented family camp and retreat center in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

Professor Steven H. Hobbs graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1975 with a bachelor of arts degree in Afro-American Studies and received the juris doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1979.  Professor Hobbs was a member of the Washington and Lee University law faculty for 16 years before accepting the position of Tom Bevill Chairholder of Law at The University of Alabama School of Law in 1997 until his recent retirement.  He also has visited at Willamette University and Florida State University.  Upon graduation from law school, Professor Hobbs practiced in the Department of the Public Advocate in Trenton New Jersey. Both his professional and scholarly interests demonstrate his commitment to the fair distribution of social and legal benefits to individuals.  The classes he has taught, the topics of his scholarship on which he has written, and the issues he has addressed at conferences include family law, professional responsibility, constitutional law, entrepreneurship, and social and economic justice.

Ilene Evans is an energetic, vibrant, original performing artist, using movement, poetry, story, song, rhythm and rhyme inspired by a rich Affrilachian life and all its folklore. Her historical portrayals of women who have changed the world include Harriet Tubman, Bessie Coleman, Ethel Waters, Memphis Tennessee Garrison, Eslanda Robeson, Elizabeth Catlett, and Coralie Franklin Cook. She has toured extensively across the US and internationally with her historical and original works. In 2009, Ms. Evans worked with staff from the US State Department to tour to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Columbia to share African American history and culture through arts, education, literature, and music. In 2015 she travelled to Ghana, and in 2018 to Marwa, Tanzania. She has received the Foundation of Freedom Award from Wheeling Jesuit University for her outstanding work.

Maine artist Rob Shetterly is the creator of the portrait series Americans Who Tell the Truth, which honors the efforts of over 240 historic and contemporary US people for a more just, peaceful, and livable world. In normal times, Rob travels the country introducing his portraits and telling the inspiring stories of his subjects. Much of his current work focuses on honoring and working with the activists trying to bring an end to the terrible practice of Mountaintop Removal by coal companies in Appalachia, on climate change, and on the continuation of systemic racism in the US particularly in relation to the school-to-prison pipeline.

 

 

Judith Black stories provide new perspectives on history, familial dysfunction, aging, and our disintegrating environment. Judith has told featured at festivals across North America from the Montreal Comedy Festival to the Smithsonian Folk Festival. She has told 13 times at the National Storytelling Festival and is the winner of the Oracle and Brother Blue Awards. She loves the earth, is a fanatic organic gardener, and active in 5 climate organizations.