Board of Directors
Don Edwards
 Attorney Don Edwards is in private legal practice in his Atlanta law firm, The Law Office of Donald P. Edwards, specializing as a trial lawyer in the areas of personal injury, wrongful death and medical malpractice since 1973. Don is a 2004 inductee to the Gate City Bar Association Hall of Fame, a recipient of the Chief Justice Award for Community Service, which is the State Bar of Georgia’s highest award for community service, a former Chair of the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta and other volunteer service on numerous other boards.
Since September 2001, Don has been active in peacemaking and co-founded the InterFaith Atlanta Coalition for Justice and Peace in the World, and is host, producer and sponsor of, Every Church A Peace Church, a 3 time consecutive "John Allen Award" winning program "Every Church A Peace Church-tv" from the Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasters channel (AIB), including AIB's first "Viewers Choice Award" in 2007. Selected interviews of "ECAPC-TV" may be viewed from the home page of this website. In 1969 Don received his B.A. cum laude from Morehouse College, and awarded the J.D. degree from Boston University School of Law in 1973.
A native of Buffalo, New York, Don is the husband of Jo Roberson Edwards and the grateful father of Nia, Domia and Dawnalisa Edwards. See, www.donaldpedwards.com for more information.
Don is Treasurer of the Board.
Joan Haan, MA, CPCC
Joan is a former special education teacher and currently an Organizational and Leadership Coach and Facilitator. She brings her coaching skills to peace and justice work: Conversations with Other – connecting people from different sides of the Middle East conflict and Interfaith Conversations with Other – local interfaith initiatives, as trainer for Creating a Culture of Peace: Nonviolence Training for Personal and Social Change, and as a member of SPIN, St. Paul Interreligious Network.
Joan is married to Phil Haan and they have two daughters attending college. She is a member of Pilgrim Lutheran and serves on their Peace Team.
Joan is Vice Chair of the Board.
David C. Jehnsen, Chair and CEO
 David C. Jehnsen has been a social change activist, organizer and educator in adult education for democracy with emphasis on special projects and systems related to nonviolence and social responsibility. His experience with nonviolence began at an early age in the Church of the Brethren and was stimulated by exposure to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s leadership of the nonviolent civil rights campaigns.
In 1962, his participation in the Albany Movement as part of a national delegation of interfaith leaders provided an opportunity for direct ongoing involvement in Dr. King’s campaigns through 1968. He is a leader who combines the experience and skills of organizing social movement with innovative ideas about the philosophy of learning and leadership education. Since 1968, his focus has been on institutionalizing the capability to provide training, research, education and public information about nonviolent approaches to reconciling unjust social conflicts and violent conditions.
Mr. Jehnsen’s experience with schools has been nontraditional. He was awarded his Ed.M. degree from Harvard University Graduate School of Education in 1977 and completed his course work and qualifying paper for an Ed.D. at Harvard. His dissertation topic is "The Cultural Transferability of N.F.S. Grundtvig’s Conception of Adult Education."
He is retained by public and private organizations to design institutional programs in leadership education about nonviolence conflict reconciliation and social change for democracy. He conducts seminars and programs that educate people at many levels of society about the philosophy and methodology of nonviolence. In 1980-81, he served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Congressional Commission charged with design of the United States Institute of Peace. He drafted the Commission’s first proposal and supporting legislation.
Mr. Jehnsen has worked closely with Bernard LaFayette, Jr., another leader in the civil rights movement, as a multidisciplinary team for forty years to promote Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Education strategies and programs in the United States and internationally. The Centro Memorial Martin Luther King, Jr. (CMMLK) in Havana, Cuba invited them to work in Cuba because of their experiences in the design and implementation of nonviolence leadership development strategies based on Dr. King’s philosophy. The Cuba/US Kingian Nonviolence Exchange is designed to create a partnership between CMMLK faculty and leaders in sixteen Cuba provinces with Kingian nonviolence faculty and leaders in sixteen US regions. These partnerships are designed to strengthen the capacity of the churches in both societies to address conflict and social change with nonviolence.
David serves as the board chairperson for Every Church A Peace Church.
Dr. Matthew V. Johnson, Sr.
Pastor, preacher, scholar, writer, lecturer, administrator, and servant of the people, Rev. Matthew V. Johnson, Sr. has been in the ministry over twenty-five years and has served as pastor for over fifteen years, currently serving as Pastor of Christian Fellowship Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA.
Dr. Johnson earned a B.A. degree from Morehouse College with a double major in Philosophy and History in 1983, an M.A. degree in Religious Studies and a Ph.D. degree in Philosophical Theology from The Divinity School at the University of Chicago. He also completed two years of post doctorate work in Psychoanalytic Training at Duke University in conjunction with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Dr. Johnson is highly recognized for his capable leadership and is a widely published professor and author of numerous manuscripts, articles, book reviews, books, and novels.
Matthew is National Director of Every Church A
Peace
Church.
Rev. Michael Piazza, National Pastor and Dean
Michael S. Piazza is a spiritual visionary, author and social justice advocate who currently serves as Dean of the Cathedral of Hope, known as the world’s largest liberal Christian church with a predominantly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender outreach, as well as President of Hope for Peace and Justice, a non-profit ministry of Cathedral of Hope whose mission is equipping progressive people of faith to be champions for peace and justice.
A native of Georgia, Rev. Piazza has served in ministry for more than three decades, pastoring churches in Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma and Florida. He holds Bachelor Degrees in history and psychology from Valdosta State College in Georgia and a Master of Divinity from the Candler School of Theology, Emory University in Atlanta.
The Advocate magazine named Rev. Piazza one of the most influential people in the gay and lesbian movement (August 1999). He has six published books, Holy Homosexuals (to be re-released in January 2008 as Gay by God), Rainbow Family Values, Mourning to Morning, Growth or Death, Queeries: Questions Lesbians and Gays have for God, and the recently released The Real antiChrist: How America Sold its Soul. He is currently at work on Prophetic Renewal, a book designed to help restore vitality to liberal congregations. Rev. Piazza and his partner Bill have been together since 1980 and have two daughters.
Bill Price
Bill Price has been a member of The Church of the Saviour (C of S), an Ecumenical Church in Washington DC, since 1971. Bill, Betty and their three children came to the Washington area in 1963 when Bill was appointed to a top scientific post in the USAF Civil Service, as Executive Director of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
In 1974, at the age of 55, he retired from his AFOSR position -- the last in his thirty year career of teaching and managing in US Military REsearch and Development Programs -- so that he and Betty could serve as volunteers of C of S.
In early 1978 bill joined with Rev. N. Gordon Cosby and Dr. Richard J. Barnet in founding World Peacemakers, one of the dozens of ministries born within the C of S. He has served as its volunteer Coordinator since the beginning. Currently he is President of World Peacemakers and co-founder of the rapidly growing Every Church A Peace Church movement.
During his first career Bill was the author of the first college-level textbook on NUCLEAR RADIATION DETECTION (McGraw Hill, 1955, 1964), and several papers on the management of military research, including at the time - April 1966 -- very controversial paper "concerning a Growing (Peacemaking) Role for the Military". During his second career Bill has been the editor and principal writer of the "World Peacemaker Quarterly" and of several papers and study guides seeking to help combine Christian vocation with the pursuit of national and world security, peace with justice, and servant leadership of organizations.
Glen Stassen
Dr. Glen Harold Stassen is Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena. At Berea College, he won the Seabury Award for Excellence in Teaching, and at Fuller Theological Seminary he won the All Seminary Council Faculty Award for Outstanding Community Service to Students.
Before joining the faculty at Fuller, Stassen taught at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Berea College, Kentucky Southern College (now part of University of Louisville), Duke University, and was for three years Research Fellow at Harvard University.
He is is the author of Living the Sermon on the Mount (Jossey Bass: July, 2006),
Kingdom Ethics: Following Jesus in Contemporary Context, with David Gushee (InterVarsity, 2003), and Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace (Westminster/John Knox: 1992). Kingdom Ethics won the Christianity Today Award for Best Book of 2004 in Theology or Ethics.
Gloria Bromell Tinubu, Ph.D.
Gloria Bromell Tinubu, Ph.D., has held such leadership positions as college president, tenured professor of economics, member of the Georgia Board of Education, member of the Atlanta City Council, Atlanta mayoral candidate, and CEO of Atlanta Cooperative Development Corporation, a city-created entity she founded in 1996. As Chair and CEO of Bromell Tinubu Group LLC, Gloria is dedicated to growing low-income communities and creating economic opportunity through business growth and development. A recipient of numerous honors and awards such as Who’s Who in Black Atlanta, Atlanta Business League’s 100 Most Influential Black Women, and the Atlanta Business Chronicle’s Most Influential Georgians, Gloria is a graduate of 1996 class of Leadership Atlanta and served as a member of the Commission for the Future of Clemson University. She received her Ph. D. in Applied Economics and Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics from Clemson University and her undergraduate degree from Howard University. Natives of South Carolina and Nigeria, respectively, Gloria and her husband of 31 years, Soji Tinubu, live in Atlanta, Georgia. They are the proud parents of four adult children, Ayo, Titilayo, Femi, and Tayo and are proud new grandparents to 2-year old Adewole, son of Ayo and Ariel.
C. T. Vivian
Rev. C. T. Vivian is a living legend of the Civil Rights Movement and he continues his activism today, tirelessly working for the progress of African Americans and the civil and political rights of all peoples. An uplifting speaker, he has addressed audiences in 42 states, 10 countries, and on countless campuses nationwide on the issues of civil rights, non-violence, racism and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with whom he worked for many years.
A Baptist minister, his first use of non-violent direct action was in 1947, to end Peoria's segregated lunch counters. Later he founded the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, organizing the first sit-ins there in 1960 and the first civil rights march in 1961. Rev. Vivian was a rider on the first "Freedom Bus" into Jackson, Mississippi, and went on to work along-side Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his Executive Staff in Birmingham, Selma, Chicago, Nashville. the March on Washington; Danville, Virginia; and St. Augustine, Florida. During the summer following the Selma Movement, Rev. Vivian conceived and directed an educational program, Vision, and put 702 Alabama students in college with scholarships. The program later became Upward Bound.
Rev. Vivian has been featured as an activist and an analyst in the civil rights documentary, "Eyes on the Prize," and has been featured in a PBS special, "The Healing Ministry of Dr. C. T. Vivian." He has made numerous appearances on "Oprah" as well as the "Montel Williams Show" and "Donahue." Rev. Vivian is the focus of the biography, Challenge and Change by Lydia Walker and he is author of Black Power and the American Myth, which was an Ebony Book Club Selection.
His leadership positions include Chairman of the Southern Organizing Committee Education Fund, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) the Black Action Strategies and Information Center (BASIC), and the Center for Democratic Renewal.
An eloquent and inspiring speaker, Rev. Vivian continues to speak out for racial justice and democracy.
Jo Ann Watson
Dr. Jo Ann Watson is serving her second term as a Member of the Detroit City Council, where she has sponsored more than 600 laws in 4 years, including: a ban on hand-held cell phones while driving, a ban on smoking in public places, & a law demanding that Receiving Hospital & Hutzel Hospital remain open “in perpetuity”. She is the only woman to serve as the Executive Director of the Detroit NAACP. She was appointed as vice chair of the Detroit Human Rights Commission by Mayor Coleman A. Young & chaired Women’s Equality Day Celebrations in the City of Detroit for a decade. Formerly, she was a local and national YWCA executive.
Prior to her election, Council Member Watson was Public Policy Liaison for Congressman John Conyers, and was a co-founder of the Coalition for Health Care Equity. She has hosted an award-winning radio/television talk show “Wake Up Detroit!” for nearly two decades, and has traveled throughout the Continent of Africa & the USSR.
Council Member Watson earned a Journalism Degree from the University of Michigan where she co-founded the Black Action Movement. Currently, she is a board member with: ACLU, NAACP, National Anti-Klan Network, The Detroit Wayne County Health Authority and Greater Quinn A.M.E. Church. Watson is the mother of four and has garnered more than 250 awards, including an Honorary Doctorate & lifetime achievement awards from the YWCA, the NAACP, the Detroit Human Rights Commission, the SCLC, and the Young Democrats. The Honorable Jo Ann Watson chairs the Women’s Ministry at her church; and has been a licensed social worker. She has authored and contributed to hundreds of columns, articles, and books including: Should America Pay?, The ABC’s of School Finance, Reparations Ray Jenkins’ 40-year quest for 40 acres and a Mule & Guide to African-Centered Education. Watson is currently helping hundreds of citizens avoid foreclosures; and is providing assistance to thousands of citizens to circumvent water shut-offs via legislation & advocacy. During the summer of 2007, Council Member Watson worked with others to sponsor summer jobs for 1,300 young people in the City; provided leadership & staffing to re-open the Dexter-Elmhurst Center; and worked with other City Council Members & the Dr. Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, to maintain the African World Festival as the signature Ethnic Festival on Detroit’s Riverfront.
|
 |
