Ministers hosting second town hall
(Above: Ministers’ Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity members pose at a meeting last September.)
The Ministers’ Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity has scheduled a second town hall meeting for Monday, Jan. 19 (the federal Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday) at 11:45 a.m. in the Anderson Center’s Dillard Auditorium on the campus of Winston-Salem State University. The community is invited to participate.
Like the first meeting, the upcoming one will address the theme, “Solutions for Improving Police/Community Relations.”
“We believe that we can make advances and change the social culture in our community with honest, crucial conversations,” reads a statement from the Ministers’ Conference, an organization comprised of mostly African-American pastors and religious leaders. “We believe that we can discover new ways of growing together. We are committed to challenging our congregations and our community to have open, honest dialogue, and to participate in this discussion.”
The goals of the town halls are to begin meaningful and open dialogue between representatives from the community and the police and identify problems and offer solutions that will help the Winston-Salem police promote transparency and build bonds with the community.
Kami Chavis Simmons, director of the Criminal Justice Program and professor of law at Wake Forest University, will serve as moderator.
Simmons joined the Wake Forest University School of Law faculty in 2006 and brings substantial experience to teaching and writing about criminal law.
After receiving her J.D. from Harvard Law School, she began her career as an associate at private law firms in Washington, D.C., where she participated in various aspects of civil litigation, white-collar criminal defense, and internal investigations. Her research focuses on using Cooperative Federalism principles and stakeholder participation to implement sustainable reforms in the criminal justice system. She writes in the areas of police and prosecutorial accountability, federal hate crimes legislation and enforcement, and racial profiling. She was elected to the American Law Institute in 2012.
The entire community is invited to attend and participate in this free event.
