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Gabriel Camacho was born and raised in the South Bronx. His parents emigrated from Latin America during turbulent political times. Gabriel was both a union and student activists during his years at State University of NY at Albany. He has his masters in Labor Relations from Cornell University. In the 1990s Gabriel worked for SEIU as a business agent, and later for HERE as an organizer. In 1999 he founded the Massachusetts Chapter of the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement (an AFL-CIO constituency group). Gabriel is currently the Chair of Eastern Massachusetts Jobs With Justice. He is also on the Board of Directors of U.S. Labor Education of the Americas Project, and United for a Fair Economy. Gabriel works as Regional Organizer of Project Voice, an immigrant rights program for the New England office of the AFSC where he is also an active member of UNITE HERE Local 66L. Complementing Gabriel's work, he serves as the President of the Junta Directiva of Centro Presente, a Central American immigrant community organization.

Anjali Waikar works with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts in Boston. The civil liberties work of the ACLU of Massachusetts ranges from traditional issues of free speech and association, to broader topics of the death penalty, juvenile justice, immigrant rights, racial justice and opposition to profiling, religious freedom, privacy and a woman's right to choose. Anjali's project addresses the effect and patterns of racial profiling used by local and federal law enforcement. Working with the ACLU of Massachusetts, her project places post-9/11 profiling within a human rights framework. Anjali will integrate four components human rights documentation, community organizing and education, policy initiatives and litigation strategies in an effort to help secure the civil rights and liberties of Massachusetts residents. After graduating from Wesleyan University, Anjali served as a legal advocate for low-income, HIV-infected individuals at South Brooklyn Legal Services. She also worked with a community development organization in Guatemala to set up HIV testing for indigenous communities located in the eastern rainforest of the country. After graduating law school, Anjali joined the ACLU of Massachusetts as a Racial Justice Fellow, focusing on the disproportionate impact that certain policies and practices in the juvenile justice system have on youth and youth of color.

Actor, playwright, and teacher, Kate Carney has been captivating listeners from Galway to Chicago with her historical theater pieces. As a storyteller, she's shared stories with children throughout the Northeast since 1993. When it comes to stirring an audience, she's a leading expert. She leads Teacher Trainings and interactive workshops for adults and kids.

Edward Davis is the commissioner of the Boston Police Department.

Gwynn Hughes is the Director of the Massachusetts Afterschool Partnership, a public-private partnership dedicated to improving resources and quality for after school programming in the Commonwealth. Prior to heading the Partnership, Ms. Hughes served in the Secretariat of Health and Human Services for Massachusetts, overseeing multi-agency projects to benefit low-income children and families. Ms. Hughes has served in state government in a variety of capacities, including serving as Chief Operating Officer for the former child care agency, the Office of Child Care Services. Ms. Hughes holds a J.D. from Northeastern University, and a masters in music from the University of Virginia. [Source: http://www.pearweb.org/conferences/pear/fourth/panels.html]

Chris Pyle is a teacher, scholar, and political activist whose interests range across history, law, and politics, with an emphasis on civil liberties. Pyle has taught intelligence agents in the army, policemen at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, undergraduates at University College in Dublin, law students at Harvard, and graduate students at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has chaired Mount Holyoke's Department of Politics and the College's programs in complex organizations and American studies. In 2007, he received the College's distinguished teaching award.

Richard Hoffman is author of Half the House: a Memoir, and the poetry collections, Without Paradise and Gold Star Road, winner of the Barrow Street Press Poetry Prize. His work, both verse and prose, has appeared in Agni, Ascent, Harvard Review, Hudson Review,Poetry, Witness and other magazines. He has been awarded several fellowships and prizes, most recently a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in fiction, and The Literary Review's Charles Angoff Prize for the essay. He is currently Writer-in-Resident at Emerson College.

Carole Horne headed the Harvard Book Store buying department from 1978 until July 2007, when she became the General Manager. A booklover since her childhood in Texas, after moving to Boston she went on to get her M.A. in English Literature. She has been active in the bookselling community, having served with the New England Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Association, and the Independent Booksellers Consortium. A frequent speaker at regional and national conventions, she has also been on the faculty of ABA Booksellers School since 1988, teaching in the U.S. and in Central Europe. [Source: http://www.harvard.com/events/press\_release.php?id=2426]

Mark Pawlak is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Official Versions in 2006. The Buffalo Sequence, his first full collection of poems was strongly influenced by the poetry of William Carlos Williams and Cesar Vallejo, and the autobiographical writings of Maxim Gorky.

Linda McCarriston has been teaching at the CWLA Department at the University of Alaska Anchorage since 1994. Although a native of Lynn, MA, McCarriston holds dual Irish/U.S.A. citizenship. She has taught at Vermont College, Goddard College and George Washington University and has been a Poetry Fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe College. McCarriston is the author of three highly acclaimed collections: *Talking Soft Dutch*, an AWP Award Series Selection, *Eva-Mary*, winner of the 1991 Terrence Des Pres Prize, and her most recent collection, *Little River*. McCarriston is featured in Bill Moyers' *The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets*, Linda Hogan's *Intimate Nature* and Robert McDowell's *Cowboy Poetry Matters*.

A giant of the hard bop era, saxophonist and composer Benny Golson originally hails from Philadelphia, Penn. He began studying piano at the age of 9, but was soon seduced by the tenor saxophone sounds he heard on jazz records. Golson's career blossomed after graduating from Howard University, when he joined up with "Bull Moose" Jackson's blues band. There, he met pianist and composer Tadd Dameron, who encouraged Golson's budding talent at writing music. Golson spent a brief period with Dameron's band before joining Dizzy Gillespie's globetrotting big band, where his tenor playing and compositional abilities gained even more recognition. Artists like James Moody, Miles Davis and Dizzy himself recorded Golson's "Blue Walk," "Stablemates" and "Whisper Not" respectively. His tunes became an integral part of the group's repertoire some would become enduring jazz standards, such as "I Remember Clifford," "Along Came Betty," and "Killer Joe." At the end of the 1950s, Golson set out with trumpeter Art Farmer and formed the Jazztet, a hard bop quintet. After several years of touring, Golson took time away from the bandstand to concentrate on composing. He moved to Hollywood and began focusing on composing and arranging for commercials, television programs and films. Golson made a serious return to the stage and the studio in the late '70s, freelancing extensively with the likes of Woody Shaw and Pharoah Sanders. In 1982, he rejoined Art Farmer with a new version of the Jazztet. Golson has also devoted much of his time to jazz education though teaching, clinics and even writing textbooks for a new generation of musicians. He continues to record and tour regularly.