MoveSmart.org is 'slightly delayed blogging' (there's limited wifi access in the room; this will be udpated as frequently as possible) for the IDHR-sponsored “Race & Public Policy: A Dialogue to Remember” on Wednesday, December 2, 2009 at the Thompson Center.

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10:40am – Bobbie Wanzo, the deputy director of the Illinois Department of Human Rights, calls the room to order and introduces the panel. She frames the discussion as a celebration of Human Rights Day 2009, for which the United Nations has set as a theme “celebrating diversity”. She notes that IDHR is a 'human rights' agency and operates out of a human rights framework. IDHR has produced brochures and materials in 11 languages (and is working to expand into even more) and has staff that is fluent in Spanish, Polish, and Korean. They have trained more than 12,000 individuals over the past year.

MoveSmart.org is incredibly pleased to bring you live coverage of the "Reaffirming the Role of School Integration in K-12 Education Policy: A Conversation Among Policymakers, Advocates, and Educator" Conference. 

This live blogging is sponsored by the Poverty & Race Research Action Council.

We're having trouble accessing MoveSmart.org through Howard University's wifi connection; please visit www.justinmassa.com for the live coverage. We will re-post here as soon as possible.

Brendan Crain and Justin Massa will be live blogging the Housing Action Illinois 2009 Convention for the next two days. You can follow along here.

Starting at around noon (eastern) on Sunday, June 7th and continuing through noon on Tuesday, June 9th, we'll be live blogging from the National Fair Housing Alliance's annual conference. This year's conference, entitled "Fair Housing in the 21st Century: Realizing a More Perfect Union" (link to agenda, .pdf) is taking place at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

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1:17pm - Lunch keynote speaker Loretta King, the acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, opens by applauding the collabortion between NFHA and DOJ and recognizing the many DOJ staffers who are in the audience. She then asks who in the audience can truly say that throughout their lifetimes has truly lived in integrated housing. Just one person raises their hand.

1:21pm - King notes, "Since January 2009, we have significantly enhanced our enforcement efforts, and yes I am here to brag about it." DOJ has filed 16 fair housing act cases already this calendar year.

Starting at around noon (eastern) on Sunday, June 7th and continuing through noon on Tuesday, June 9th, we'll be live blogging from the National Fair Housing Alliance's annual conference. This year's conference, entitled "Fair Housing in the 21st Century: Realizing a More Perfect Union" (link to agenda, .pdf) is taking place at the Hyatt Regency Washington on Capitol Hill.

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9:07am - NFHA's Shanna Smith takes the stage to kick off the day, introducing the newly re-elected board chair Jim McCarthy of the Miami Valley Fair Housing Center.

9:11am - McCarthy introduces the morning plenary: "Realizing a More Perfect Union: Building Healthy and Inclusive Communities". The panel is moderated by Prof Melissa Harris-Lacewell of Princeton University and includes I. King Jordan of Galludet University, Janis Bowdler of the National Council of La Raza, Hilary Shelton of the NAACP Washington Bureau, and Karan Narasaki of the Asian American Justice Center.