Jesse Jackson, David Satcher to speak at APA's Annual Convention in Boston

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson and U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, PhD, MD, will speak at APA's Annual Convention in Boston, Aug. 20-24.

Jackson will be the keynote speaker of the opening session to the "Presidential Miniconvention on Ethnic Minorities: Scaling the Summit." It will be held Aug. 20, 5-6:30 p.m., at the ballroom in the Hynes Convention Center and chaired by APA President Richard M. Suinn, PhD. Satcher will address the "Public Interest Miniconvention--Mental Health and Violence in the New Millennium," Aug. 22, 1-1:50 p.m. Henry Tomes, PhD, APA's executive director for public interest, and Gwendolyn P. Keita, PhD, APA's associate executive director for public interest, will co-chair the event.

Jackson, who plans to talk about bringing people together regardless of race, class or gender, has spent more than 30 years working toward those ideals. As a student at North Carolina A&T State University in 1963, Jackson began his involvement in civil rights activism. After graduating, he became a lieutenant of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and an assistant to Martin Luther King Jr.

Jackson was the founder of People United to Save Humanity (PUSH), which sought to help the underprivileged and people of color receive better education, jobs and economic independence. In 1984 Jackson founded the National Rainbow Coalition, which seeks to promote justice on economic, racial and social issues, such as employee rights, gender equality, election law reform, and fair and decent housing. By September 1996, PUSH and the Rainbow Coalition had united to fulfill common goals.

In addition to his lifelong efforts as a civic leader, Jackson also made a run for the U.S. presidency in 1984 and 1988. In 1990 Jackson was elected to an unofficial and nonvoting U.S. Senate seat in Washington.

Most recently, Jackson successfully negotiated the release of three American prisoners of war in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

Satcher, who is the 16th Surgeon General of the United States and Assistant Secretary for Health, directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and also served as Administrator for the Toxic Substances Registry from 1993 to 1997. He has worked to increase the number of children who receive vaccinations and immunizations and enlarge the nation's capacity for dealing with new infectious diseases. He also expanded CDC's breast- and cervical-cancer screening program to all 50 states, five territories and 15 American Indian reservations.

In late 1999, Satcher will release a long-awaited report on mental health that psychologists hope will heavily influence public health issues and public policy. The report will examine mental health difficulties people encounter from early childhood to their later years.

Satcher has received the Bennie Mays Trailblazer Award and the Jimmy and Roslyn Carter Award for Humanitarian Contributions to the Health of Humankind from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He earned his MD and PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1970.

--M. Waters



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