Fla. College Activist Conference Aug. 6-8

Fla. College Activist Conference Aug. 6-8
July/August 2004

Former Black Panther Party leader, Elaine Brown, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Dr. Preston Smith, of the Labor Party's Free Higher Education campaign, headline the speakers at this year's Florida College Activist Coalition Conference, which will be held in Tallahassee from August 6th - 8th, 2004 (Friday - Sunday).

Last year, 250 college activists from across Florida gathered in Orlando and created the Florida College Activist Coalition. The Coalition is holding its 2nd annual conference in Tallahassee with a heavy emphasis on organizing and mobilizing students and young people for the 2004 elections. Workshops will focus on voter registration, voter education and voter mobilization, and there will be a pre-conference canvassing training (Friday, 10-4) for activists interested in learning the basics of canvassing.

An additional focus of the conference is to continue building and strengthening the statewide coalition of student organizers begun at last year's inaugural conference. Capitalizing on the broad cross-section of work being done by student activists across Florida, conference organizers have invited a range of dynamic speakers:

Former Black Panther leader, Elaine Brown, and Khalil Osiris-Sudan, of the National Alliance for Radical Prison Reform, will be speaking on Friday evening about structural reforms to the prison system.
Reverend Charles MacKenzie, of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, will speak Saturday morning.
Dr. Preston Smith will speak on Saturday night about the Labor Party's "Free Higher Education" campaign to make a college education free for any student.
Democratic Presidential Candidate, Dennis Kucinich, has been invited to be the keynote speaker closing out the conference on Sunday.

In addition to the speakers, organizers hope the conference will help local activists to:

Build campus, local and statewide coalitions to strengthen their individual and collective grassroots, issue-based work
Receive training from experts for voter registration, education, and mobilization
Build relationships with other activists, learn from their successes and struggles, and share their frustrations and accomplishments, so that they may begin to work together around the state as a strong and active network of Florida activists

FSU Students United for Peace and Justice will be hosting the conference at Tallahassee's newly organized Progressive Center and at Florida A&M University. Organizers are expecting 500 students from each of Florida's 11 public universities, including the University of Florida. The Gator NAACP, Student Farmworker Alliance, Council of Social Concerns, Graduate Assistants United, Alachua County Labor Party, and Campus and Gainesville Area NOWs are organizing people to attend.

There will be buses taking students from south and west Florida. Local organizers are working on arranging transportation for any Gainesville folks interested in going to the conference. The availability of a bus from Gainesville depends on the number of people who express interest by July 30. If you are interested in attending with other people from Gainesville please contact Kelly Mangan at the Civic Media Center (373-0010) or email campus_now@hotmail.com.

For more information, a tentative conference schedule, or to register, visit www.floridacollegeactivist.org/conferencedescription.htm