ABA COREJ Chair David Perkins will moderate the four-part discussion on the ongoing violence epidemic. Panels will feature prominent leaders of Detroit and students including:

• Barbara McQuade, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Eastern District of Michigan

• Penny Bailer, executive director, City Year

• N. Charles Anderson, president and CEO, Urban League of Detroit

• Angela Reyes, executive director, Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation

• Yusef Shakur, author

• Judge M.T. Thompson, author of Making Choices and Facing Consequences

• Moana Makki and Joanna Ladki, Arab Community Center for Economic & Social Services

Additionally, Dennis Archer, former Detroit mayor, past ABA president and former Michigan Supreme Court justice, will deliver the keynote address. As a native of Michigan, Archer will provide firsthand insight into the problems that are plaguing Detroit’s youth.

The Detroit meeting is the second of three town halls on teen violence in America. The first discussion was held by COREJ on Nov. 20, in conjunction with Chicago State University, with featured guest Dr. Steve Perry, author of Man Up! Nobody is Coming to Save Us and principal of Capital Preparatory Magnet School, Hartford, Conn. The final town hall will take place Saturday, Aug. 7, in San Francisco as part of the ABA Annual Meeting.

COREJ and their local partners will develop a national plan of action to help cities that are struggling with teen violence.

COREJ has been instrumental in developing and implementing more than 10 successful programs directed at either youth-at-risk or those who work to help youth through its Over Representation of Juveniles of Color in the Justice System Project. 

With nearly 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is the largest voluntary professional membership organization in the world.  As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law.

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