The Future of Black Leadership

The vision of the Black Scholars and Professionals Conference (BSAP) is to see a generation of African Americans and people of African descent who are graduate students, faculty, and/or professionals being transformed by Christ, being renewed in their academic pursuits or professional lives, and becoming agents of transformation within the African American community, the church, and the world.

Conference speakers include:

Professor John W. Fountain
John W. Fountain is a professor of journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been a reporter for The Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post, and a national correspondent for The New York Times. Fountain is also the author of True Vine: A Young Black Man's Journey of Faith, Hope, and Clarity. His research is centered around urban youth violence, and he is developing a summer education program in journalism for minority high school students.

Dr. Carol Parks-Bani
Dr. Carol Parks-Bani is a community health education specialist with a passion for helping communities of color and poor communities to identify and solve their own health problems. Her specific areas of interest include: health promotion through African-American churches, community assets mapping, exploring the health impacts of the "strong Black woman" concept, the development of culturally relevant health education materials and research instruments, barriers to health communication and health care services provision, and empowerment education. Recently, she has begun exploratory work on implementing her church-based health promotion model in Ghana, West Africa.

Rev. Dr. Harold Dean Trulear
The Rev. Dr. Trulear is the senior pastor of the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church of Twin Oaks, Pennsylvania, visiting associate professor of practical theology at Howard University and visiting professor of religion and public policy at the Templeton Honors College at Eastern University. He has taught religion, public policy, and community studies in several institutions, including Yale University, Drew University, Hartford Seminary, Gordon-Conwell Seminary, Fuller Seminary, and the Center for Urban Theological Studies. His research interests include religion and youth, juvenile justice, African-American religion, and urban ministry.

For more information about the conference schedule, or to mail in your registration, download the conference brochure, or visit the conference website and register online.