Dane County Circuit Court Judge, Pastor of Christ the Solid Rock Baptist Churchand highly regarded social activist, Everett Mitchell balances justice like a three-prong network with a huge heart. When he received the 2017 Martin Luther King Award this year, he noted that King’s legacy should not be idealized, as that can lead to complacency, but be put into action. And Judge/Pastor Mitchell practices what he preaches. In honoring King’s words, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,”he casts a wide net of advocacy. He is the only Black Baptist minister in Madison to have married a same-sex couple and speaks up in support of LBGTQ rights despite its unpopularity among some faith communities here. In the courtroom, where 75% of his cases are juvenile, he works to change the way the system deals with adjudicated youth who he views as children being punished for having been traumatized and broken.
He insists they enter his courtroom unshackled, treated with dignity, and addressed with respect. In sentencing youth, he offers options for rehabilitation over incarceration, and in some cases, as their restitution, he asks them to watch and write a five-page paper on the movie “13th,” a documentary that shows how slavery exists within the criminal justice system and exposes the corporate interests that feed mass incarceration. That’s just part of what he does. Judge/Pastor Mitchell is a sought-after speaker on a wide range of topics that affect communities of Color, such as Madison's high rate of disparities among People of Color, Wisconsin’s record for being the worst state to raise Children of Color, and its lead in the mass incarceration of Men of Color. With this year's conference theme of "Balancing Resilience & Innovation in a World of Rapid Change," Judge/Pastor Mitchell was the perfect selection for the keynote. Meet Judge/Pastor Everett Mitchell at the 2017 Madison Nonprofit Day Conference as he presents the Lunchtime Keynote. Join him and hundreds of others helping to shape and redefine Madison. |
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