Ethics, Values & Citizenship / Ética, Valores y Ciudadanía

Bakersfield, California

I write with an update. The Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom Center has mobilized 29 high school students and 6 college interns, and we are in Kern County, California for the month of July. The team is involved in an intensive Voter Education and Registration Drive. We are also carrying out our leadership classes based on social justice history, civics, and applied ethical education. Everyone is doing great!

The Freedom Center team is hosted by the Dolores Huerta Foundation. Dolores and her staff have been the most gracious hosts. We have had the special privilege of being at the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument at La Paz, the small, intentional community of the United Farmworkers Union. La Paz is composed of 185 acres with offices, community center, a clinic, and many homes. Cesar and Helen Chavez are interned at the Monument.

In our first four days, the team has knocked on over 1,500 doors. We’re rising in the morning at 6 a.m. and retiring each night between 10 and 11 p.m. The students are working and studying hard! We are very proud of them. We are making our own meals and sleeping on the floor of the David Head Senior Center.

Yesterday, Dolores Huerta hosted a press conference for the Freedom Center where we announced our work here in Kern County. The press conference featured four Freedom Center students.

I have included below two links of the press conference.

Click here for video

Click here for ABC 23 segment

You can follow us on our Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center Facebook page for daily updates. Click here.

For a stronger democracy,

Roy D. Wilson, Ed.D.
Executive Director
Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center

Executive Producer
Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series
Executive Director
Institute for Community Leadership

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Roy Wilson

Roy Wilson, Ed.D., President and founder of the Institute for Community Leadership, Kent, WA; Executive Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center, Oakland, CA.

Dr. Wilson has a BA in English and Masters in Creative Writing both from the University of Washington, an Ed.D. in Educational Leadership and Change from Fielding Graduate University. He is a published author, scholar and presenter on civil rights, nonviolence and libratory leadership practices. He has served as director of various non-governmental entities including Seattle Managua Sister City Association, International Relations Director for El Centro de la Raza, and is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for Community Leadership and the Jack Hunter O’Dell Education Center. Dr. Wilson has received international, state and regional awards for his work in civil rights and confronting racial and socio-economic disparities. He is widely published and his work has been featured in Life Magazine, the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami Herald, Seattle Times, Oakland Tribune, and in a National Public Radio TV Special “The United States of Poetry” and a National television feature on the Nickelodeon Network.

Latest posts by Roy Wilson (see all)

• In Honor of the Day of the Heroic Guerilla - October 8, 2016
• Freedom Center Students on Intensive Voter Engagement Campaign - July 13, 2016
• Please consider: Institute for Ethics and Voter Engagement - June 26, 2016