Please join us Saturday, May 2, 2015, 8 am - 4:30 pm at the Conference Center at Mercer for the 61st Biennial State Convention of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey: Commemorating the 50 Year Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.
We are honored to announce our keynote speaker is Ryan Haygood, President and CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice and previous Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund. Haygood has litigated some of the most important civil rights cases of our time and has twice defended the constitutionality of a core provision of the Voting Rights Act. At the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund,Haygood worked to empower communities of color by facilitating full, equal, and active participation in the political process, fighting for better educational, employment, and housing opportunities, and advocating for a fair criminal justice system. As President and CEO of the Institute, Haygood works to expand access to social justice and economic opportunity and advocates for juvenile and criminal justice reform.
Convention will also feature Winnefred Rowell-Bullard. While a freshman in college, Winnie and a group of peers participated in a non-violent, sit-in demonstration at a segregated movie theater. They were sent to the South Carolina state penitentiary until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. freed the group from the prison. Winnie will speak about this experience and her path working for equality and the betterment of her community.
In addition to these marvelous speakers, the day of Convention will feature:
And the day before Convention will feature:
There will be two special workshop sessions on Friday, May 1, 2015 at the Hilton Garden Inn, 800 US Highway 130, Hamilton, NJ.
These two sessions are available for free to anyone attending Convention and/or the cocktail reception, but please RSVP for them during registration on the next page. If you would like to attend these special workshops, but will not attend the other events, please pay $10 at the door.
The evening before Convention, Friday, May 1, 2015, please join the League of Women Voters of New Jersey to celebrate "95 Years of Making Democracy Work" with a cocktail reception and awards ceremony at the Hilton Garden Inn, 800 US Highway 130, Hamilton, NJ at 7 pm. The League will be presenting our prestigious "Making Democracy Work" awards to deserving honorees in honor of their work educating, engaging, and protecting New Jersey voters. For more information about the cocktail reception and honorees, please click here.
We hope that you will make a weekend of it, spending Friday and Saturday celebrating at both the cocktail reception and Convention. We are offering a special price (a $50 savings) when you register for these events together using the option available during the registration process.
Rooms are available at the Hilton Garden Inn (the location of the cocktail reception and the special workshop sessions).Reservations can be made by calling the hotel at 609-585-6789.
We look forward to an energizing and productive state Convention!
Register Now! Registration deadline is noon, Friday, April 24, 2015