This panel discussion is part of the Pomona College Criminal Justice Symposium
Wednesday, March 30, 2016, from 4:30 - 6 p.m.
Rose Hills Theatre
Panel Discussion Participants
Valorie Thomas is an associate professor of English and Africana studies at Pomona College. She originated the concept of Diasporic Vertigo as a motif of decolonization. Thomas also studies film and visual art; has an ongoing interest in the connections between writing, art and social justice; curated the Vertigo@Midnight exhibition inspired by her work on Afrofuturism, speculative art and spirituality; and is a screenwriter.
Susan Burton is the founder and executive director of A New Way of Life. After cycling in an out of the criminal justice system for nearly 15 years, she gained freedom and sobriety and founded A New Way of Life Reentry Project in 1998. Burton opened her doors to other women returning home from prisons and jails, offering shelter, safety, leadership, and support to those seeking to rebuild their lives. She was recently nominated as a CNN Top 10 Hero in the category of “community crusader” and awarded the Citizen Activist Award from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 2010.
Dolores Canales is the founder of California Families Against Solitary Confinement. She is on the Advisory Board of CURB (Californians United for a Responsible Budget) and also a member of LWSGI (Lives Worth Saving Gang Intervention), all California based organizations. She is also a mother of a Pelican Bay SHU prisoner.
Kim McGill is an organizer and co-founder of the Youth Justice Coalition of Los Angeles where she recruits and trains youth organizers about the issues of the juvenile injustice system, police and prison funding, the school to prison pipeline, creating grassroots movements to accomplish change, inequities in the justice system, and alternatives to incarceration.