Martin Luther King III
Institute for Social Justice & Human Rights
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Violence Is Uncool & Unacceptable
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Robert L. Adams is the Chief Operating Officer of the newly formed Martin Luther King III Institute for Social Justice & Human Rights, Inc. (The King Institute).  As the former Interim COO of The King Center, Robert Adams was an executive on loan from The Fetzer Institute, a private operating foundation in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Dr. Adams holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from The University of Texas at Austin and a M.A. in sociology from The University of Florida.  He obtained additional training in management and leadership at The University of North Carolina and The Aspen Institute (Aspen, Colorado).  During the fall of 2008, he was a Fulbright scholar at the Catholic University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.  During his tenure at the Fetzer Institute, he served as a Program Officer, and managed a substantial portfolio of projects in the areas of business and conflict resolution that aligned with the mission of the organization.  Dr. Adams has taught and directed research projects at DePaul University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  He has published numerous research articles and reviews that have appeared in publications such as African and Black Diaspora, Anthropology News, American Ethnologist, Identities and Safundi.  He serves on a number of boards including the Board of Directors of the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation (Washington) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities’ for Racial Reconciliation at the University of Mississippi, the FACES of Manhood Initiative at Morehouse College, and the Social Sciences Department at the Federal University of Acre in Rio Branco (Acre), Brazil. As a founding principal of The King Institute, he oversees the management and logistics of the organization while aligning strategic resources for program implementation. 


Rachel Davis, Managing Director at Prevention Institute, oversees management of projects related to prevention violence, community health and reducing inequity, and mental health. She creates tools and materials to support local and state initiatives and educates government agencies, foundations, and community groups throughout the country. Rachel serves as Project Director for UNITY (Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth through Violence Prevention), Prevention Institute's CDC-funded national initiative to strengthen and support the largest U.S. cities in more effectively preventing violence. Rachel co-developed THRIVE (Toolkit for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments), an interactive web-based tool to help identify and foster factors in the community environment that improve health outcomes and reduce inequity. She has written numerous publications, including First Steps: Taking Action Early to Prevent Violence. Rachel also co-authored A Time of Opportunity: Local Solutions to Reduce Inequities in Health and Safety, Health for All: California's Strategic Approach to Eliminating Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health, and Good Health Counts: A 21st Century Approach to Health and Community for California. Prior to joining Prevention Institute in 1997, Rachel had extensive experience as a social worker for the San Francisco Unified School District. Rachel received her MSW from UC Berkeley's School of Social Welfare.


Xavier Morales, Program Manager, works in the areas of promoting health equity and preventing violence. He manages the Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments (THRIVE) initiative and is also a manager for Urban Networks to Increase Thriving Youth (UNITY). Xavier has extensive experience in community-led prevention initiatives including youth development, workforce/employment development, education/college access programming, prisoner reentry, alternatives to detention, community development, and art focused recovery and rehabilitation programs. He also has a strong track record authoring/designing proposals to support community-led prevention initiatives as well as experience conducting evaluations for federal, state, local and foundation supported programs. Xavier's current focus is working with multi-sectoral community-led collaborations to address social determinants of health inequity and to prevent violence. Xavier received his Ph.D. and Master's degrees in City and Regional Planning from Cornell University and his B.A. in Environmental Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley.


Howard Pinderhughes, Ph.D. is Chair and Associate Professor, at the Dept. of Social and Behavioral Sciences. He is also a Research Associate at the Institute for the Study of Social Change at U.C. Berkeley and Affiliated Faculty at the U.C.S.F. Institute for Health and Aging. He is the author of Race in the Hood: Conflict and Violence Among Urban Youth, a study of racial attitudes and racial violence among youth in New York City. Dr. Pinderhughes has worked for the last fifteen years with community-based organizations and schools in San Francisco's Mission District and Bay View Hunter's Point neighborhoods, conducting community based research on youth violence, gang violence and adolescent relationship violence, as well as providing training, workshops and assistance in program development in the areas of adolescent violence prevention and intervention, and race relations among youth.  Dr. Pinderhughes’ research combines aspects of grounded theory, qualitative methods, survey research and participatory action research to examine problems related to the impacts of structural inequality, racial, class and gender dynamics on adolescent health and relations. He is currently developing a conceptual framework to address the production of racial, class and gender health inequality.  Howard Pinderhughes received a B.A. in Political Science, an M.A. in Sociology, and a Ph.D. in Sociology, all from the University of California, Berkeley.


Neil Rainford received his Masters of Health Science Education from the University of Florida and is currently a Public Health Advisor and the acting Team Lead for the State Community and Assistance Team, Program Implementation and Dissemination Branch, Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) within the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC) at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As the acting Team Lead, he provides supervision, programmatic oversight and direction for grants and cooperative agreements in the violence topical areas of sexual violence, child maltreatment, suicide, and youth violence. He presently works on the Urban Networks to Improve Thriving Youth (UNITY) Project, and has served as a Project Officer for over 10-years on the Rape Prevention and Education Grant. In addition, he serves as a SME on youth violence.


Carol Lloyd
Executive Producer

Rosele Mascotti, Photographer



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