Tampa, Fla. (August 19, 2020) – Dr. Bernard LaFayette will keynote “Transformations,” Community Tampa Bay’s (CTB) Annual Fundraiser, on Thursday, August 20 at 7:00 pm. The annual event honors leaders who embody inclusion and social justice with the Silver Medallion Award, and every year attendees experience the transformative power of Community Tampa Bay’s anti-discrimination work.
Dr. Bernard LaFayette is a Civil Rights Movement activist, minister, educator, lecturer and authority on nonviolent social change. He will discuss his commitment to the ongoing civil rights movement, as well as his experiences growing up in Tampa, FL.
What: Community Tampa Bay’s Annual Fundraiser Transformations, Honoring Civil Rights Leader and Tampa Native, Dr. Bernard LaFayette
Registration Link: https://www.communitytampabay.org/transformations-registration
Where: Community Tampa Bay’s YouTube Page, youtube.com/communitytampabay
When: Thursday, August 20 at 7:00 pm
Three additional local leaders will join Dr. LaFayette in receiving Community Tampa Bay’s Silver Medallion award, Robert Blount, President of Abe Brown Ministries, will receive the award for his steadfast advocacy for the rights and dignity of incarcerated persons. Pamela Gomez, the Florida Immigration Coalition’s Central Florida Community Organizer is being recognized for her intersectional approach to immigration advocacy.
Jenn Yeagley, CEO of the St. Petersburg Free Clinic is receiving the Silver Medallion Award with a new distinction. The Silver Medallion Award with Kerry Afflitto distinction represents someone who is also being recognized for above and beyond contribution to Community Tampa Bay. The namesake, Kerry Afflitto, passed away earlier this year after decades of support as a CTB donor, volunteer, and champion.
Community Tampa Bay envisions a community free from discrimination in which every individual is treated with dignity and respect, with regard to their race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, ability, faith, and or age.
For more information and to RSVP for the event, please go to www.communitytampbay.org or contact Community Tampa Bay’s Executive Director, Tammy Briant Spratling at tammy@communitytampabay.org.
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About Dr. Bernard LaFayette
Bernard LaFayette, Jr. has been a Civil Rights Movement activist, minister, educator, lecturer, and is an authority on the strategy on nonviolent social change. He Co-founded the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1960. He was a leader of the Nashville Movement, 1960 and on the Freedom Rides, 1961 and the 1965 Selma Movement. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project in 1962, and he was appointed National Program Administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and National Coordinator of the 1968 Poor Peoples’ campaign by Martin Luther King, Jr. In addition, Dr. LaFayette has served as Director of Peace and Justice in Latin America; Chairperson of the Consortium on Peace Research, Education and Development; Director of the PUSH Excel Institute; and minister of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Tuskegee, Alabama.
An ordained minister, Dr. LaFayette earned a B.A. from American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, Tennessee, and his Ed.M. and Ed.D from Harvard University. He has served on the faculties of Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta and Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama, where he was Dean of the Graduate School; he also was principal of Tuskegee Institute High School in Tuskegee, Alabama; and a teaching fellow at Harvard University.
His Publications include the Curriculum and Training Manual for the Martin Luther King Jr., Nonviolent Community Leadership Training Program, his doctoral thesis, Pedagogy for Peace and Nonviolence, and Campus Ministries and Social Change in the ’60’s (Duke University Review) and The Leaders Manual: A Structured Guide and Introduction to Kingian Nonviolence with David Jehnsen. Dr. LaFayette has traveled extensively to many countries as a lecturer and consultant on peace and nonviolence.
Dr. LaFayette was formerly a Distinguished Scholar in Residence and Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island. He is the chairperson for the International; Nonviolence Executive Planning Board. He was also appointed by Rhode Island Governor, Lincoln Almond, as chairman for the Rhode Island Select Commission on Race and Police-Community Relations. Currently, Dr. LaFayette is a Senior Scholar in Residence at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
For more information, videos, or booking information for Dr. Lafayette, visit, https://joejackson247.wixsite.com/lafayette.
About Community Tampa Bay (CTB)
The mission of Community Tampa Bay is to cultivate inclusive leaders to change communities through dialogue and cross-cultural interaction. CTB empowers people with the tools to have hard conversations with others who don’t look like them, live like them, or love like them to create a community free from all forms of discrimination.
CTB’s programs train and cultivate individuals who make a difference in institutions and communities by influencing others through dialogue and cross-cultural interactions. CT believes they can effect positive change when we have leaders across identities who influence culture and interrupt systemic institutional discrimination through personal relationships, advocacy, and representation. To learn more please visit, www.communitytampbay.org.
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