It Is Well With My Soul, in collaboration with Northeast Indiana Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, presents Bill Fletcher, Jr. to the Northeast Indiana community.

FORT WAYNE, IN, December 29, 2010

The Inaugural Annual Meeting for It Is Well With My Soul (IIWWMS) is scheduled to take place Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 5:30 pm until 8:00 pm on the campus of Indiana Tech, at Andorfer Commons. The keynote speaker will be longtime labor, racial justice and international activist, Bill Fletcher, Jr. The theme is "Race, Class and Community Mobilization: Taking It To The Streets!" The meeting will highlight IIWWMS 2010 accomplishments, including presentations by Indiana Tech students of their historically significant research on race in Fort Wayne . The students' project topics addressed gaps in community knowledge and were part of a course, Race, Family History, and Community, co-constructed from the IIWWMS workshop curriculum.
The IIWWMS stated mission is: "To heal, uplift, and empower the minds, bodies, and souls of the African-American community through Africentric educational workshops, civic engagement and historical preservation and presentation." IIWWMS, program affiliate of African/African American Historical Society, is one of 119 programs of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation's $75 million five year American Healing initiative (www.AmericaHealing.org). IIWWMS aims to promote healing from internalized racism and to promote community engagement/mobilization, using workshops, presentations, traveling exhibits, story-telling, oral narratives, and role-plays.

Bill Fletcher, Jr. is the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and a founder of the Black Radical Congress. Fletcher is the co-author (with Fernando Gapasin) of Solidarity Divided, The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path Toward Social Justice ( University of California Press ). He was formerly the Vice President for International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center of the AFL-CIO. Prior to the George Meany Center, Fletcher served as Education Director and later Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO.
Fletcher got his start in the labor movement as a rank and file member of the Industrial Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers of America. Combining labor and community work, he was also involved in ongoing efforts to desegregate the Boston building trades. He later served in leadership and staff positions in District 65-United Auto Workers, National Postal Mail Handlers Union and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

Fletcher is a graduate of Harvard University and has authored numerous articles and speaks widely on domestic and international topics, racial justice and labor issues. Actor/Activist Danny Glover states, "Bill Fletcher and Fernando Gapasin have put together a hard-hitting analysis of the crisis facing organized labor. But this is not just something for people involved in unions. If we are to build a movement for social justice then we must confront the issues that they are raising."

For more information or to schedule an interview contact Geno Burgess at geno.burgess@yahoo.com.

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