News Release

Theologian’s presentations mark next diversity series installment

February 120, 2008

Two public presentations by Dean of the Virginia Union University School of Theology John W. Kinney mark the next installment of Penn State Harrisburg’s year-long diversity lecture series.

Sponsored by the college and its Diversity and Educational Equity Committee, the Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Series is entitled “The Anatomy of Social Justice: Still Dreaming.”

The Rev. Dr. Kinney will make two public presentations on Wednesday, March 5 – at 12:30 p.m. in the Oliver LaGrone Cultural Arts Center on campus and at 7 p.m. at the Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church in Harrisburg.

A native of Wheeling, W.Va., Dr. Kinney received undergraduate and graduate degrees from Marshall University and Virginia Union University and a Ph.D. from Columbia University/Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Under his leadership as dean of the Virginia Union School of Theology, the master of divinity program experienced unparalleled growth and the continuing education program was expanded. In addition to his academic responsibilities, he serves as pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Beaverdam, Va., and has served as a member of the faculty at the Chicago Theological Seminary, Randolph Macon College, and the College of William and Mary.

He is currently a consultant to the American Baptist Convention, the Progressive National Baptist Convention, the Baptist General Convention of Virginia, the U.S. Army and Navy Chaplain Corps, and is now serving as vice president of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.

Internationally acclaimed civil rights advocate Morris Dees caps the ambitious series when he delivers a 6 p.m. lecture Tuesday, April 8 in the Student Center of the Capital Union Building.

The founder and chief trial counsel of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Dees participates in suing hate groups and mapping new directions for the nonprofit organization. He was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Penn State in 2002.

In 1967, lawyer Dees had achieved extraordinary business and financial success with his book publishing company. The son of an Alabama farmer, he witnessed firsthand the painful consequences of prejudice and racial injustice. He sympathized with the Civil Rights Movement but had not become actively involved. A night of soul-searching in a snowed-in Cincinnati airport changes his life, inspiring Dees to leave his safe, business-as-usual world and undertake a new mission.

“When the plane landed in Chicago, I was ready to take that first step, to speak out for my black friends who were still disenfranchised even after the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Dees wrote in his autobiography, Season for Justice. “I had made up my mind. I would sell the company as soon as possible and specialize in civil rights law.”

In 1967, he began taking controversial cases that were highly unpopular in the white community. He filed suit to stop construction of a white university in an Alabama city that already had a predominantly black state college. In 1969, he filed suit to integrate the all-white Montgomery YMCA.

As he continued to pursue equal opportunities for minorities and the poor, Dees and his law partner, Joseph J. Levin, saw the need for a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeking justice. In 1971, the two lawyers and civil rights activist Julian Bond founded the Law Center.

Dees’ autobiography was published in 1991 and re-released by the American Bar Association in 2001 as A Lawyer’s Journey: The Morris Dees Story. His second book, Hate on Trial: The Case Against America’s Most Dangerous Neo-Nazi, was published in 1993. It chronicles the trial and $12.5 million judgment against white supremacist Tom Metzger and his White Aryan Resistance group for their responsibility in the beating death of a young black student in Portland. Ore. In his third book, Gathering Storm: America’s Militia Threat, Dees exposes the danger posed by today’s domestic terror groups.