Remembering Anthony Shadid: 1968-2012

We were shocked and saddened to hear of Anthony Shadid's untimely passing yesterday, at the age of 43, from an apparent asthma attack while on assignment in Syria. The fact that Anthony survived so much for the sake of his craft - including being shot in the West Bank in 2002 and captured by Libyan forces in 2011 - makes this loss particularly poignant and difficult. Anthony was one of the last true journalists, devoted to finding and sharing the truth, no matter the personal cost.

Looking back on the life and accomplishments of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Anthony Shadid, we are grateful we got to know and work with such a remarkable human being. We encourage you to share your memories of Anthony in the comment section below.

A Better US Education System – Let’s Make it Happen!

The success of tomorrow’s future lies with the children of today. It is alarming to think that each year, more than one million students drop out of high school.  Not only is education a vital step to finding a career path, it is imperative to shaping a child’s self respect, ambition, and social etiquette. Many APB speakers within the educational field are working toward improving the US educational system, each of them contributing in different ways.

In 2010, speaker America Ferrera joined the American Graduate initiative aimed at lowering high school dropout rates. She is a dedicated child advocate and believes “educating a child is not only about them, but the generation that comes after them.” Ferrera often speaks to students about how she is successful because of the education she had growing up. She is scheduled to speak at Bunker Hill Community College on February 16. Her presentation will aim to inspire students to continue their education and give back to the community.

APB speaker Jonathan Kozol has also worked tirelessly throughout his career to improve the United States' education system. He is devoted to the issues facing the US public school system, in particular the challenges America has with providing equal opportunities to every child. He currently dedicates a considerable amount of time to convincing the senate to reduce unequal opportunities within the public school system.

Likewise, APB speaker Geoffrey Canada, founder of Harlem Children’s Zone in New York City, has also dedicated a large portion of his career to improving underprivileged children’s lives. His groundbreaking work in the 24-block neighborhood in Harlem has now been repeated throughout similar areas across the country. In his presentations, Geoffrey Canada teaches communities about improving the lives of today’s youth and improving their education.

Educator and APB speaker Diane Ravitch is a true leader in education. Her keynote speech, “The Death and Life of the Great American School System,” addresses the positive aspects of the current system as well as the severe problems the system currently faces.

Bestselling author and youth advocate Wes Moore discusses the issues he faced evolving in a troubled environment as a child. In his keynote address, he states that his mother's decision to enroll him in military school dramatically improved his fate. He believes that children's support systems (families, mentors, schools, friends, etc.) have the most lasting impact on their lives.

See a full list of other educational speakers.

Speakers We Love

Roses are red

Violets are blue

We love our APB speakers

And you should, too! 

In honor of Valentine’s Day, we would like to express our heartfelt appreciation for all of the talented speakers we work with here at APB. There aren't enough hours in the day to name all of the speakers we love so much, but we've chosen a handful to share with you.

"Coach Herman Boone is more than just a great speaker, he is a wonderful person. He is genuine, kind, gracious, and warm. Working with him is a true pleasure…and I am not alone in my assessment of Herman Boone. APB clients adore Coach Boone as evidenced by a note I received from the host of a recent event. He wrote, “[Coach Boone] was so gracious, engaging and inspirational! I have been involved with our MLK celebration events for over 18 plus years, and Coach Boone without hesitation has been our best speaker yet! He was so wonderful with everyone. You knew right off the bat that he spoke from the heart with sincerity and was able to get his message out as only he can." Everyone loves Coach Boone and it’s a privilege to represent and work with him." -Beth, Event Coordinator

"Sarah Lacy proves every day that she is one of the brightest stars in Silicon Valley! Her first-hand anecdotes from the cutting edge of worldwide entrepreneurship are like an avalanche of innovation for my clients worldwide. I always know that I’ll receive a call or email after an event where my clients will say, 'WOW!!!' Her new tech-blog Pando-Daily is a must-read for the daily pulse of the startup ecosystem!" -Lauren, Corporate Agent

"I dearly love speakers like Mary Frances Berry, Nick Kristof, John Prendergast, Ralph Nader, and many others I have known in my 34 years of work at APB who have put their lives on the line to focus the spotlight on the ugliest parts of human behavior so that I can do the easy thing of taking action to assist the afflicted. Love takes many forms, I have discovered." -Bob, College Agent

"Sam Graham-Felsen's always working on something new, which keeps him relevant, and makes sure to keep us updated on his articles, media appearances, etc. He goes out of his way to accommodate as many dates as he possibly can, is generous with his time at events, and never fails to thank us for our efforts. We all know he’ll do a great job no matter where we send him, so it’s a no-brainer to recommend him to as many clients as we can." -Meaghan, Marketing

"I love Touré – a smart, witty, and insightful speaker with so much to offer. He’s made me think differently about diversity, society, and our roles in the multicultural community we live in. If there’s anyone to help point out the good, the bad, and the absurd surrounding issues of race and identity, it’s Toure. On this Valentine’s Day, let’s all take a moment to share our love of knowledge and information with those who make it possible to learn in a fun, relaxed, and comfortable way. Hooray for Touré!” -Ron, College Agent

"I love sending out Stacey Bess, who consistently touches hearts and minds with her compassion and insights on educating children. I find working with Diane Ravitch fulfilling because she is willing to say, 'I’ve changed my mind,' and has ideas about how education can be reformed to help children everywhere. Geoffrey Canada inspires me every day with his commitment to the kids in Harlem and the families that support them.” -Michele, Education Agent

"While an undergraduate in 2001, Rye Barcott founded the nonprofit Carolina for Kibera. Today, this NGO is acclaimed for using a unique model of participatory development to break cycles of violence and develop leaders in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.  Around this same time, Rye was called into active duty as a marine Captain. The reason I included Rye in 'Speakers We Love' is that Rye took the time to explore this juxtaposition he found himself in: one of waging peace while fighting war. And it is the juxtaposition which makes Rye unique, distilling in him unique leadership lessons which I have been lucky enough to learn firsthand from him; allowing me to reflect on my own leadership and the effect that I have on others. Many audiences only get one keynote speaker; in Rye you get half a dozen in one: a marine, a humanitarian, a business man, an author, a Harvard MBA, and above all a global citizen.”-Josh, Corporate Agent

Keeping Up with New Years Resolutions

A mere two months into 2012, you may find your initial willpower slowly fizzing out when it comes to New Year resolutions. But fear not! APB is here to light your way with our speakers’ inspiring examples.  Whether you hope to achieve personal or professional goals, APB speakers can keep you motivated throughout the year with their stories of determination, dedication, and success.



Louganis



Slacking on the gym and secretly hoping to spend this upcoming Valentine’s Day drowning in few heart-shaped boxes of chocolates? The following speakers may help you find the incentive you need to stick to your fitness resolutions. Although Olympic diver and author Greg Louganis is best known for being a six-time world champion, his bestselling autobiography, Breaking the Surface, reveals his lifelong fight against depression, a battle he fought by plunging head-first into his athletic endeavors.






Smith

As the old adage claims, you are what you eat. In addition to fitness, nutrition is vital for your overall well being. APB speaker Dr. Ian Smith can offer you advice on how to maintain a balanced diet. As the medical/diet expert on Celebrity Fit Club and the founder of the 50 Million Pound Challenge, he will certainly provide you with essential guidelines on how to whip yourself into shape.






Boome

Celebrity Chef and speaker Danny Boome can also offer excellent advice on health and nutrition. He is a passionate advocate for healthy eating and provides essential tips for nutrition “on the go.”

Jones

Perhaps your company is focusing on reducing its carbon footprint in 2012? APB speaker Van Jones is a globally recognized pioneer of sustainable and clean energy economy. Jones’ efforts in the environmental field have received national media attention from The New York Times, Newsweek, Good Magazine and numerous online forums. As a motivational speaker, he can inspire your employees to work together towards a greener company in 2012.




Likhotal

Likewise, environmental advocate and speaker Alexander A. Likhotal can help your business work on improving its efforts in sustainability. As President of Green Cross International, he has a wealth of environmental and sustainable development knowledge. He specializes in the climate change crisis and sustainable development. Other environmental speakers include David Suzuki and Alexandra Cousteau.

Wong Ulrich

In light of our current economy, many people have focused their resolutions on budgeting and saving money. You may be focusing on saving some cash, or managing your debts. APB speaker Carmen Wong Ulrich is a personal finance expert. She offers the essential coaching you’ll need to fulfill your debt management goals for 2012. Other expert financial speakers include John Dorfman, Maria Bartiromo and Paul Kangas.

By mixing equal doses of persistence and motivation, and adding a sprinkling of inspiration from APB speakers, you've got yourself a recipe for success. Linda Armstrong Kelly, Christopher Kennedy Lawford, and Sean Stephenson are additional motivational speakers who will lend you their positive spirit to help you achieve your New Year’s Resolution.



The Occupiers’ Vanguard: Celebrating Black History Month

Occupiers have pitched their tents in McPherson Square, Zuccotti Park, and Oakland, but their form of civil disobedience harkens back to an older generation whose extraordinary accomplishments continue to shape the US. In light of this past year’s recognition of “the protester” as the Time person of the year, APB would like to commemorate some of these activists’ predecessors for this year’s Black History Month. We are honored to represent remarkable individuals whose contributions to the Civil Rights Movement allow us to openly voice our own discontent today.

The following are a few of these innumerable men and women:

Award-winning journalist and speaker Charlayne Hunter-Gault was one of two black students to force the University of Georgia to integrate in 1961, and its first black student to graduate in 1963. In 1968, she joined The New York Times as a metropolitan reporter specializing in the coverage of the urban African American community, for which she garnered fame for her “people-centered” approach to journalism. As NPR’s chief correspondent in Africa, and later the CNN Johannesburg Bureau Chief and Correspondent, she continued her longstanding mission of exposing human rights violations through her candid reporting.

After graduating from Columbia University in 1956 and receiving his MD from Cornell in 1960, APB speaker Dr. Alvin Poussaint plunged head-first into the Civil Rights Movement, providing medical care to civil rights workers and contributing to the desegregation of hospitals and health facilities throughout the South as the Southern Field Director of the Medical Committee for Human Rights from 1965 to 1967. In 1969, he joined the Harvard Medical School as a professor of psychiatry, and later he was recruited by Bill Cosby as a script consultant to The Cosby Show to help screen out inappropriate humor and stereotypes. To this day, Dr. Poussaint strives to create positive images for black Americans.

After attending grade school and high school under a deeply segregated system, keynote speaker Mary Frances Berry climbed her way up academia to become the first black woman to head a major research university as chancellor of the University of Colorado. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter named her Assistant Secretary of Education in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and in 1980, he appointed her Chairperson of the US Civil Rights Commission, a post she retained until 2004. Having dedicated her life and work to the pursuit of civil rights, gender equality, and social justice, she inexhaustibly continues to inspire individuals today as a professor of law and history at the University of Pennsylvania.

Immortalized by the film Remember the Titans, in which he was portrayed by acclaimed actor Denzel Washington, football coach and inspirational speaker Herman Boone is a legend in the stadium as well as outside of it. In 1971, he was appointed head football coach of the newly integrated TC Williams High School in Alexandria, for which he faced the seemingly impossible task of leading a team of previous football rivals of mixed black and white backgrounds. Against all odds, he not only succeeded in uniting his team, but led them to the state championship.

Following a difficult, poverty-stricken youth in an overtly racist society, Baltimore native and APB speaker Kweisi Mfume decided to seek refuge in his cultural roots and become politically active in order to help his fellow community members. He rose to prominence in Maryland and was eventually elected to the House of Representatives in 1986. He stepped down from office in 1996 to accept the presidency of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and for the next nine years, he successfully raised the NAACP’s national profile and helped restore its prominence among the nation's civil rights organizations.

For more information on what APB speakers have to say about Black History Month and Martin Luther King, please visit our website.

New Material from APB Speakers

Whether you plan on escaping this winter’s dreary weather by hibernating for the next few months or by vacationing in Zanzibar, your long wait till spring can fortunately be livened up with new reading and viewing material by such APB speakers as Robin Karr-Morse, Charlayne Hunter-Gault, Raj Patel, James McBride, Matthew Pearl, Anthony Shadid, A.J. Jacobs, and Bay Buchanan. The following briefly describe some of our favorite recently released and upcoming books and films:

Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Traume in Adult Disease, by Robin Karr-Morse

Childhood development speaker Robin Karr-Morse discusses the repercussions of chronic fear in infants—when humans are at our most helpless—into adulthood, and how these may trigger common diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and depression in adults. She deftly exposes the importance of preventing excess stress in infants in an account that may help us improve the well being of future generations.

To the Mountaintop: My Journey Through the Civil Rights Movement, by Charlayne Hunter-Gault

A retrospective of award-winning journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault’s involvement with the Civil Rights Movement, this enlightening book begins with the author’s efforts to integrate the University of Georgia as one of two black students there, and culminates with her attending Barack Obama’s inauguration as president. With clarity and candor, diversity speaker Charlayne Hunter-Gault exposes an integral piece of American history, providing photographic evidence and original articles from The New York Times along the way.

Payback, a film by Jennifer Baichwal featuring Raj Patel

Journalist and food policy expert Raj Patel appears in Payback, a documentary film directed by Jennifer Baichwal loosely based on a novel by Margaret Atwood. The film discusses the various shapes “debt” assumes—from the “ecological debt” human beings owe the Earth to the “psychic debt” present in any feeling of revenge. The film suggests that debt is a mental construct that affects all human endeavors, from our relationships to the fate of the planet. Patel weighs in with a sharp critique of capitalism, offering a thought-provoking take on the economic imbalance in our society.

Red Hook Summer, a film by Spike Lee, co-written by James McBride

Author and APB speaker James McBride co-wrote Spike Lee’s new film, Red Hook Summer, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. A coming-of-age story about a young black boy who spends a summer with his grandfather, the film probes issues such as race, neighborhood gentrification, impotent police, and the ravaging effects of drugs and gang violence on the African American community.

The Technologists, by Matthew Pearl (Publication Date: February 21)

In a historical thriller set in 19^th-century Boston, best-selling author and keynote speaker Matthew Pearl pits the past against the present and tradition against technology. When a series of inexplicable catastrophes threaten to destroy the city, it’s up to a band of MIT students to uncover the reason why chaos has been unleashed, and to save Boston. Pearl’s novel promises to be a thrilling and engaging read.

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East, by Anthony Shadid (Publication Date: March 27)

Pulitzer prize-winning correspondent Anthony Shadid, who was one of four New York Times reporters captured in Libya in 2011, recounts returning to his grandfather’s home after he was freed. In this extraordinary account, journalist and prominent Middle East speaker Shadid meditates on the nature of “home” as he attempts to find his place in his grandfather’s estate, a place haunted by memories of a lost era when the Middle East was known for its grace and grandeur.

Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, by A.J. Jacobs (Publication Date: April 10)

Keynote speaker A.J. Jacobs, who brought us the side-splitting The Year of Living Biblically, returns with a new mission: to become the healthiest man alive. With characteristic wit, Jacobs describes the innumerable diets and exercise regimens he religiously followed for two years, exposing the often ridiculous nature of these so-called health-plans.

Bay and her Boys: Unexpected Lessons I Learned as a (Single) Mom, by Bay Buchanan (Publication Date: May 12)

Political analyst, former US Treasurer, and keynote speaker Bay Buchanan may be known for her political career, but she reveals a more private facet in this new book. In Bay and her Boys: Unexpected Lessons I Learned as a (Single) Mom, she shares her experience raising three young boys as a single mom.

APB Commemorates Martin Luther King, Jr.

In commemoration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, APB speakers across the map reflected on the Civil Rights leader whose non-violent activism forever transformed race relations in the United States.  Though they celebrated King’s life, they reminded Americans that his work remains unfinished, and that it remains our duty to continue his legacy.

Race and gender justice activist Nontombi Naomi Tutu spoke at the 22nd MLK Day Breakfast in Minneapolis, an event entitled, “Building Peace and Unity within the Global Community.”  The daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu urged her audience to continue to strive toward making King’s dream a reality.

"We who say we believe in justice, we who say we believe in the dream, are called to be those whose lives, whose every actions, whose any action, speaks to our belief in that possibility,” she said.  “We are those who believe that the beloved community is not some dream, but a goal."

In Lexington, Kentucky, social critic and intellectual Dr. Marc Lamont Hill delivered the keynote address at the city’s 40th annual MLK Birthday Celebration.

Echoing Tutu’s message, Ashley Campbell, a UK student in attendance, said Hill’s address encouraged her to keep working for greater equality. 

“Lots of people think we have made it, but actually we haven’t,” she said. “We need to keep striving to educate ourselves, respect each other, those of different cultures and minorities.”

This year Dr. King’s youngest daughter, APB speaker Bernice King, attended the annual MLK Day breakfast at the Prime Osborn Convention Center in Florida. As the honorary guest speaker, she urged guests at the breakfast to find the greatness within them and help others in need.

King inspired the audience and ensured her father’s dream continued to live on. Mayor of Jacksonville Alvin Brown was inspired and motivated by her words saying, “What better way to celebrate the legacy, making a call to action to the dream that we all work together.” Just like her father, she has a gift to change the lives of those who come into contact with her.

At the annual King luncheon in Peoria, Illinois, best-selling author Michael Eric Dyson urged today’s leaders to emulate King’s tenacity.  He remarked that King’s steadfast opposition to the Vietnam War caused him to lose a significant amount of popularity, yet he never shied away from his principals.  

"When black people criticized him, he kept going. When white people criticized him, he kept going," Dyson said.

Accordingly, he called President Barack Obama to follow suit and “speak up more intelligently" about issues like poverty that affect an entire nation, because, "we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny," he said, quoting King.