Listen & Learn
Summer Speaker Series
Each summer, Project Unity hosts our Listen & Learn Speaker Series. These virtual events offer actionable steps you can take as part of our Unity Challenge:
- Listen to someone else’s story
- Learn about someone else’s situation: Walk in their shoes
- Engage in constructive dialogue and activities to improve community relations
The speaker series provides the community access to special guest speakers who share their life stories and experiences to help cultivate our historical knowledge and awareness, interfaith perspectives, family values and cultural understanding. Through the power of listing and storytelling, we can all learn to become more introspective about our own life journey, mindful about how we treat each other and create a better community centered around love and unity.
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View our previous speakers’ stories to begin or continue your life-learning.
August 2024 | Jim Schutze
Jim Schutze, a retired newspaper and magazine writer from Dallas, faced censorship in 1986 when his book on Dallas race relations, The Accommodation, was banned by local business leaders on its print day. In 1987, a New Jersey publisher released 5,000 copies, which gained traction in the Black community but was largely dismissed by the white community as false. In 2022, Deep Vellum Publishers re-released The Accommodation in response to renewed interest from young adult readers, selling out the first 10,000 copies immediately. A consortium then raised funds to produce 30,000 paperback copies for free distribution in Dallas libraries and schools.
September 2024 | Lisa M. Ong
Lisa M. Ong is President and Founder of Wishing Out Loud LLC, where she serves as an executive coach, speaker, strategist, and consultant. Lisa specializes in inclusive leadership development and facilitation to support in creating cultures of belonging and welcoming workplaces. She is widely known by many as a talent gardener and inclusion connector. But much like us all, Lisa has a story to share. A story that helped to shape who she is. A story of family values, cultural traditions, expectations and things her mother said that your mother likely said, too! A story that is your story.
November 2024 | Curtis King
Curtis King, visionary leader and founder of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters (TBAAL) in Dallas, Texas, has devoted his life to uplifting Black arts and culture. His passion for the arts led him to Jackson State University, where poet Margaret Walker Alexander mentored him. Inspired by the Black Academy of Arts and Letters National Conference, King founded TBAAL, a unique, multidisciplinary arts organization within a major urban convention center. Starting with just $250, he launched an iconic institution at the Dallas Convention Center, showcasing arts, history, and community in TBAAL’s 250,000-square-foot space. Today, TBAAL attracts hundreds of thousands annually with its theaters, galleries, and cultural hubs celebrating Black excellence.
July 2023 | Florence Shapiro
Florence Shapiro is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, Ann and Martin Donald. She was born in New York City on May 2, 1948. Following the War, Shapiro’s mother was pregnant with her on the ship passage from England to New York City. After a decade in New York city, her family moved to Dallas, Texas where Florence began her educational journey graduating from Hillcrest High School, and the University of Texas at Austin. While she held a lengthy career in public service, Plano City Council, Mayor and Texas State Senator, it’s her family’s story and journey which helped to guide her love for family, education and the community.
August 2023 | The Shankleville Story
Lareatha Clay, the Shankles’ great-great-great-granddaughter, tells the story of the founding of Shankleville, and the lifelong lessons about love, perseverance and resilience that have been passed down from generation to generation. Her story is yet another story of knowing our roots and tracing our ancestry to discover how each of our families shaped America’s history.
September 2023 | Dr. Michael Hinojosa
Dr. Michael Hinojosa is celebrated for his leadership and longevity in education, with over 27 years as superintendent/CEO of six public education systems, including Dallas ISD in Texas and Cobb County School District in Georgia. Known locally for his work with Dallas ISD, Dr. Hinojosa’s journey began in 1975 at Sunset High School, where a teacher encouraged him to apply for a teaching scholarship. This support led to his career in education, impacting lives as a coach, teacher, and administrator. His story reflects the power of mentorship and how one person’s influence can change a community—and perhaps the world. You are invited to walk in his shoes and hear his journey of challenges, triumphs, faith, family, and the mentors who shaped his destiny.
May 2022 | Qubilah Shabazz, Daughter of Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz
Qubilah Shabazz is the daughter of American former Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X. She was born on December 25, 1960, in Queens, New York City, New York, to Malcolm X and Betty Shabazz. She witnessed the assassination of her father when she was just four years old. The incident took place on February 21, 1965, when Malcolm X was preparing to address the ‘Organization of Afro-American Unity’ (OAAU) at the ‘Audubon Theatre and Ballroom’ in Manhattan.
June 2022 | Ms. Opal Lee, “Grandmother of Juneteenth”
Known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” Ms. Opal Lee was present on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act bill that established June 19 or “Juneteenth” a federal holiday. Ms. Lee said on that day, “Now we can celebrate freedom from the 19th of June to the 4th of July!”
July 2022 | Rev. Peter Johnson, Prominent Civil Rights Leader
Peter Jerome Johnson was born in 1945 in Plaquemine, Louisiana. He began his entry into the civil rights movement as a teenager when he convinced a hometown gang of young toughs, calling themselves the Trojans, to transform themselves into an NAACP youth chapter in which Peter served as president. He attended schools in Plaquemine and decided to attend Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. By the time he reached Southern, he was almost a full-time civil rights worker. His motto was, “Have picket, will travel”.
September 2021 | Dr. Fred Jones
“Nightmare at the Lorraine Motel”
Featured Speaker – Contributing Author, Dr. Fred Jones
This book is a collaboration of different authors looking at Dr. Martin Luther King from the perspective of not so much the “Dream”, but the “Nightmare of America” from the thought process of Dr. King’s last night on earth, April 3rd. Dr. Jones writes a chapter on Politics that looks at the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 which was Dr. King’s first entrance into the mainstream fight of the Civil Rights movement.
October 2021 | Dale Long
Mr. Dale Long is one of few remaining survivors of the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church where four of his friends were tragically killed and twenty-seven people were injured. Mr. Long and his late brother escaped unscathed. We took an hour to “walk in his shoes” as he shared his story of that painful day in history.
November 2021 | Captain Richard G. Stewart, Jr., JAGC US Navy (Ret)
In honor of our military veterans, we highlighted the accomplishments and shared in the story of Captain Richard G. Stewart, Jr., Esquire. Captain Stewart grew up during Jim Crow in Shreveport, LA, and attended segregated schools. A career military officer, he has 24 years of service in the United States Navy and was the first African-American to command a Naval Legal Service officer and reach captain rank in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corp in 1991.