“It will be bringing the international spotlight to Birmingham, Alabama, for educating and connecting people,” said event chairman Will Ratliff, above.By Anne Ruisi
More than 100 confirmed speakers are scheduled to attend the 2023 International Peace Conference set for May 4-6 at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex North Exhibition Hall.
“It will be bringing the international spotlight to Birmingham, Alabama, for educating and connecting people,” event chairman Will Ratliff told members of the Birmingham Rotary Club while previewing the conference at the club’s March 28 meeting.
Organizers are hoping for a good turnout, Ratliff said.
“There is space for 1,500 (adults) and we hope to fill every seat,” he said, adding that up to 400 out-of-town and international visitors are expected.
It’s also hoped that up to 500 young people will attend the event’s Youth Conference on May 6.
The conference aims to equip attendees with peacemaking skills so they are able to create change in their communities.
“Ever since I moved back to Birmingham in 1981, I’ve been involved in a number of community organizations that have been based on efforts to build bridges relative to race and intolerance in all forms,” Ratliff said, including the conference’s sponsors, Rotary International District 6860, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and the UAB Institute for Human Rights.
Ratliff and fellow Rotarians, including Andrea L. Taylor, CEO of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, decided to create the International Peace Conference. Their goal is to teach participants peacemaking skills at local and international levels.
It wasn’t an afterthought for Birmingham to be chosen as the city for the conference, with its history of being the headquarters of the Civil Rights movement’s campaign to desegregate public accommodations.
Among the highlights of the conference or events that coincide with the conference are a 60th anniversary reenactment of the Birmingham Children’s March on May 5, hosted by the Civil Rights Institute, and dinner that evening with Archbishop Laurent Mbanda of the Anglican Church of Rwanda
Topics at the conference will focus on peacemaking in several tracks, such as community, education, home life, prevention of human trafficking, racial justice and equity and women’s empowerment.
Between the breakout sessions, there will be speakers on the topics of peacemaking regionally and internationally. Among the more than 75 featured speakers are the Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin and Steve Killelea, founder and CEO of the Institute for Economics and Peace in Sydney, Australia.
For more information about the conference, go online to peaceconference2023bham.com.
English (US)