National Civil Rights Conference

05/27/2026

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05/27/2026

Engage, Educate, and Empower - Thriving In The Motor City - 15th Annual National Civil Rights Conference - Held in Detroit-Wayne County Community College 6/18 - 6/20. For more information: www.civilrightsconference.com

05/27/2026

Clarence B. Jones, Bay Area educator who co-wrote MLK ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, dies at 95, on May 22, 2026

Clarence B. Jones, an adviser and speechwriter to Martin Luther King Jr. who spent the past two decades in the Bay Area as an educator at Stanford and the University of San Francisco, died Friday, May 22, at an assisted living facility in Cupertino, his family said. He was 95.

Jones had once been set on conquering Hollywood as a high-powered entertainment lawyer. That all changed when Martin Luther King Jr. showed up on the doorstep of his Southern California home.

A key figure in the civil rights movement, Jones spent the last two decades of his life teaching at Stanford and the University of San Francisco.

05/23/2026

Elizabeth Ann Eckford is still with us - an American civil rights activist and one of the Little Rock Nine, a group of African American students who, in 1957, were the first black students ever to attend classes at the previously all-white Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. www.civilrightsconference.com

Elizabeth Eckford is 84 and still with us, a living reminder that history isn't always ancient. At 15, she became one of the Little Rock Nine, walking alone into Central High in 1957 while facing a screaming mob of segregationists. 

The climate that many people say feels like it’s brewing again in 2026, growing division, attacks on education, racial tension, and efforts to rewrite history are why stories like hers matter. 

later attended Knox College and earned a Bachelor of Arts in History from Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, one of the nation's oldest HBCUs. She's not just a chapter in a textbook. She's still here. Still living history.