PRA Staff in Action

PRA research staff have been on the go, producing and presenting, with our work in heavy demand! Here are some of the highlights.

• PRA Director Katherine H. Ragsdale flew to Birmingham, Alabama in July to support the New Women All Women's Health Clinic as it was being targeted by Operation Save America's campaign of intimidation against a woman's right to choose. In describing the havoc, Katherine said, "Can you imagine going to your doctor's office and navigating through a crowd of 150 protesters screaming at you? Well, Operation Save America came, they saw, they harassed, and they annoyed; but they did not close the clinic." Earlier in the spring, the National Abortion Federation annual conference heard her message that the first step toward violent action starts with "the disregard for the consciences and values of others."
  
  
• In August, PRA Senior Analyst Chip Berlet presented at the popular Yearly Kos convention, held in Chicago and sponsored by the blog Daily Kos. Not surprisingly, bloggers crowded his panels - "What to Do About the Religious Right?" and "Is the Religious Right Really Dead?" - and posted about them afterward.
  
  
• Katherine was the only woman interviewed about the death of Jerry Falwell, by any media covering the story. "There's a lot of debate about what God says, and no denomination should be the final word on public policy," she stated.
  
  
• Senior Researcher Pam Chamberlain discussed LGBTQ intersections with reproductive justice at SisterSong's biannual conference, which brought together women of color organizations from around the country to Chicago in June. She also engaged on that and other issues at a preconference held by Causes in Common, a coalition of LGBTQ and reproductive justice groups that includes PRA.
  
  
• In the spring, Pam gave the keynote to and held a convening with 70 young reproductive justice grassroots leaders participating in the New Leadership and Networking Initiative meeting at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. She unveiled her newly-developed powerpoint, Understanding the Right: A Pre-requisite for Reproductive Justice, which received high praise for its presentation of helpful, new information about the Right's initiatives opposing reproductive rights.
  
  
• Research Director Tarso Luís Ramos' article "L.A. Story," explored the exaggeration and exploitation of African American-Latinos tension and violence in Los Angeles in Colorlines magazine's May/June 2007 issue. He was interviewed by XM Radio's "The Urban Journal" on the subject in May.
  
  
• Chip was interviewed about 9/11 conspiracy theories by the History Channel for a documentary aired in August, and his article "Siren Song – Conspiracy!" was published in the October 2007 issue of the New Internationalist magazine.
  
  
• In June, Pam and Tarso presented PRA's popular Right Wing 101 workshop, and spoke at sessions on African-American/Latino tensions, racist population control, and homophobia at the first-ever U.S. Social Forum meeting in Atlanta.