CAPA’s 45th Annual Fall Fundraiser

Lesley Williams is a librarian, writing instructor, discussion facilitator and racial equity advocate based in Evanston Illinois. As a public librarian she initiated and co-led community discussions on dismantling racism, and she has consulted with library systems and schools  on how to create racially diverse and inclusive collections, staff and services.  

She has served on numerous community nonprofit boards: as president of Open Communities, a HUD certified fair housing organization; and the Community Alliance for Better Government, which pushes for transparency and racial justice in city services. She has previously served on the boards of Family Matters in the North of Howard area, the Evanston United Way, and Interfaith Action of Evanston. In 2014, she was a member of the Evanston North Shore YWCA committee that organized Understanding Race, a year of programming on racial issues, in conjunction with the Race exhibit at the Illinois Holocaust Museum. As part of the program, she created a number of community initiatives to highlight Latinx, Muslim, LGBTQ and African American culture and issues through library programming .

Her monthly book discussions at the Evanston Public Library brought together a diverse group of Evanstonians to discuss mass incarceration, segregated housing, reparations, LGBTQ life in black America, and the agony and ecstasy of Black hair.

In December 2015, upset and disgusted by campaign rhetoric attacking Muslims, Lesley began organizing public demonstrations and canvasses in support  of Muslim communities in Evanston, Skokie , Des Plaines, Oak Lawn and Morton Grove. Lesley was the inaugural recipient of  the Spirit of Open Communities award in 2016 and has also been recognized by the Muslim Community of Morton Grove and AWBC Magazine for her work against Islamophobia.

Lesley has long advocated for Palestinian liberation with Jewish Voice for Peace and has served on  the national board of Jewish Voice for Peace Action. As part of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence, Lesley participated in two solidarity  and resistance West Bank delegations with Palestinian and Israeli peace activists. She has spoken on Palestine, Islamophobia and antisemitism at the American Studies Association conference,  Democratic Socialists of America, the MAS-ICNA conference, the Santita Jackson show, the American Muslims for Palestine conference, Worldview, at several universities and church groups, numerous webinars and podcasts, and on the Friends of Sabeel program: Countering Christian Zionism. She is the author of the articles, The Anti Defamation League Kills the Black/Jewish Alliance and  “We Cannot Fight Anti-Semitism and Anti-Black Racism in Isolation“ and is a consultant and speaker for the PARCEO “Antisemitism From a Framework of Collective Liberation” curriculum. She reviews books on race, Islamophobia and Palestine for Booklist magazine. and her writing has appeared in Truthout, Mondoweiss and AWBC Magazine.

Kina Collins is a lifelong activist and nationally recognized gun violence prevention and health care advocate, born and blossomed on the West Side of Chicago. As a national organizer for Medicare For All and founder of the Chicago Neighborhood Alliance, Kina built a track record of policymaking, coalition building, and working with communities to improve public health and safety.

In 2015, Kina helped co-organize a series of direct actions after Laquan McDonald’s murder by a Chicago police officer. In 2016, Kina was selected as a member of Generation Progress’ #Fight4AFuture National Leadership Council, which developed campaigns on gun violence prevention and criminal justice reform. Most recently she ran for Congress in the Illinois 7th district. Prior to running for office, she led the largest gun violence prevention non-profit in the state of Illinois. She co-authored civil rights legislation and helped build a statewide coalition that successfully helped pass the Illinois Council on Women and Girls Act into law. In 2019, she served as a stakeholder on President Biden’s and Vice President Harris’ transition team and task force for gun violence prevention. 

David Kelly is Catholic priest of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood.   He is the Executive Director and founder of the Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation (PBMR), a restorative justice hub in the Back-of-the-Yards/Englewood community that began in 2002.  PBMR works to accompany those impacted by violence and incarceration.  PBMR also strives to be a resource to other groups and communities who seek healing and reconciliation.    

For more than 46 years he has worked as a chaplain at Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center.  During that time he has, also, worked at Kolbe House at Assumption, in inner-city parish based jail ministry. David holds a Masters of Divinity and Masters of Arts in Cross Cultural Studies. He also holds a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min) from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. His doctoral thesis is entitled: “Responding to Violence among Urban Youth: a Restorative Approach”.

He has been trained and certified as a mediator from DePaul University and has received training in the restorative practice of Peacemaking Circles. He has published articles and spoken on reconciliation, restorative justice and jail/detention ministry.  

After teaching East Asian history at Wittenberg University for thirty years, Jim Huffman taught at Williams and Dartmouth Colleges and on Semester at Sea. The author of nine books, he has spent his life engaged in the struggle for peace and justice: writing articles, serving as a human rights courier to South Korea, and assisting undocumented and detained immigrants in the Chicago area, among other things. He is on the CAPA board.