Athens Justice Project | Citizen Advocacy | Common Ground | Eugene Wilkes | Gene Young |
Jubilee Partners | Living Wage | Millard Farmer | Operation PUSH | Project Safe | UGA Greens

The Athens Justice Project (AJP) provides direct service to recidivist-prone individuals, using an attorney and a clinical social worker as the framework for a holistic rehabilitation process. AJP selects clients through intensive screening where the potential client must demonstrate his/her commitment and readiness to change. Clients must be indigent and at-risk for repeat offending without intervention. AJP assists clients in transitioning to a halfway house or other supported living environment, offers support in finding and keeping employment, coaching on life skills, and addressing basic needs. Simply put, AJP works with the client on whatever it takes to make a lasting and sustainable change so he/she can become a productive member of society. (Read the full article in the festival newspaper.)

Citizen Advocacy occurs when a valued member of our community who is independent of human services comes to know a person with a developmental disability who is at risk for abuse, neglect, and social exclusion. Out of the bonds of this relationship the Citizen Advocate is able to respond to and represent their partner's interests as if they were their own, thus bringing this person's gifts into the circle of community life. A truly vibrant community is one that celebrates diversity and gives voice to those who have been marginalized. All our lives are enriched when we include those with disabilities. (Read the full article in the festival newspaper.)

Progressive activists across the country and here in Athens are dedicated in their efforts to address issues of social justice, civil liberties, the environment, democracy, peace, reproductive rights, and more. They unite in grass-roots organizations that take responsibility for improving their communities and political institutions. Common Ground Athens was formed to help unite and empower Athens' progressive community and connect it with the resources that are essential to achieving their goals, functions and services. Common Ground provides space for meetings and events, databases of media contacts and granting agencies, a speakers bureau, and a library on topics including non-profit development, fundraising, organizing and media skills, politics, legal issues and archives of Athens activism.

Eugene Wilkes, Jr., UGA School of Law, is a nationally recognized authority in the fields of criminal procedure, capital punishment, and post conviction remedies. He is a longtime supporter and speaker for the Athens Human Rights Festival. He believes an important reason for the recent decline in respect for human rights in America has been the spine-chilling rise of what might be called the Anti-Enlightenment, under which the moral progress of mankind, the basis for human rights, is being halted or even reversed. The Anti-Enlightenment rests on four sinister doctrines: (1) that human life is a struggle for survival of the fittest and that neither government nor the individual should aid any person who, due to poverty, infirmity, or misfortune are in dire need; (2) the ice-cold philosophy that the only meaningful things are those that can be weighed on a scale or measured with a ruler, and intangible things such as compassion and sympathy for other are rejected as meaningless; (3) the ferocious philosophy that governmental harshness and cruelty are admirable and that leniency to criminal offenders is sentimental weakness; and (4) the religious view that God is cruel, wrathful, bigoted, and homophobic; that God supports capital punishment and wars of aggression; that God is not loving and forgiving but vengeful and barbaric. Each of these four foundations of the Anti-Enlightenment scorns human rights. To protect human rights we must remember and return to the values of decency and fairness that human rights are founded on and without which they cannot flourish. (Read the full article in the festival newspaper.)

Beginning his activism at a young age, Gene Young was arrested for his participation in civil rights demonstrations in Jackson, Mississippi in 1963. A twelve year-old Gene Young stood in a chair to speak before a capacity audience at the Masonic Temple following his arrest, just days before the assassination of Medgar Evers, whom he knew. Since the age of twelve, Gene Young has spoken to audiences throughout the United States, and has maintained a constant activism. While a student at Jackson State University, Dr. Young was instrumental in organizing and coordinating demonstrations to protest the campus murders of Philip Lafayette Gibbs and James Earl Green. In his memoirs, Jackson State University President-Emeritus, Dr. John A. Peoples credits Gene Young for calming a crowd of students in the aftermath of the May, 1970 murders at Jackson State. Although this connection to the Jackson State slayings is of particular note in this 30th Anniversary year of the Athens Human Rights Festival, it is but one of his many contributions to Black History and human rights, and Gene Young was featured in the documentary "Saving Our History: Voices of Civil Rights," which aired on the History Channel in February of 2005. (Read the full article in the festival newspaper.)

Jubilee Partners, a Christian service community located near Comer, in Madison County, sponsors a program teaching refugees the language and life skills they will need to make a successful transition from the war-torn conditions of their home countries to the United States. Jubilee Partners focuses on peace activism and refugee resettlement as the way to implement its vision of justice and mercy.

Living Wage Athens is an advocacy movement with and for low wage workers, designed to reverse the increasing difference between low wages and the median or average incomes for working families.

Millard Farmer is an internationally recognized Civil Rights Attorney and death penalty opponent, who is portrayed in the book "Dead Man Walking". He is a recognized authority on strategy in litigating capital cases. Farmer has been a pioneer in transferring real world issues into legal and constitutional issues with innovative motions and legal procedures. His strategies enlarge the jury box and courtroom. Farmer has spoken at numerous Athens Human Rights Festivals.

Janice L. Mathis is a local attorney and former chief-of-staff for Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. She is an advocate for equal opportunity in education and equitable education funding.

Project Safe is a local, non-profit organization that provides a safe Shelter, a 24-hour Hotline, Referrals and Support Groups for women, and their children, who are victims of domestic violence.

The UGA Greens started in August of 2006. Since then they have become the progressive activist voice on campus. They have explored a number of social and political issues with a variety of events. They've screened Sundance Award-winning films like American Blackout and have invited internationally-known leaders like Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. They've attended demonstrations in Washington DC against the war and have held demonstrations at the University of Georgia against the war and the Miliarty Commissions Act.

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Last Updated April 19, 2008.