Mindful Campus Program

Anthony Ray Hinton survived for 30 years on Alabama's death row. His story is a decades-long journey to exoneration and freedom. In 1985, Mr. Hinton was convicted of the unsolved murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based on the testimony of ballistics experts for the State who claimed that the crime bullets came from a dusty revolver found in Mr. Hinton's mother’s closet. Without the benefit of a competent expert to challenge the State’s theory (Mr. Hinton’s lawyer hired a ballistics expert who was blind in one eye), an all-white jury convicted Mr. Hinton and he was sentenced to death. After years of petitioning to have the revolver re-analyzed, three independent experts concluded that the bullets could not have been fired from his mother’s revolver. With the assistance of the Equal Justice Initiative, led by attorney Bryan Stevenson, Mr. Hinton was freed in 2015. Since his release, Mr. Hinton has traveled the world sharing his story and discussing the changes that need to be made to prevent similar injustices from happening to other people. In 2018, Mr. Hinton published The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, which was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and is a New York Times bestseller. In 2019, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from St. Bonaventure University, and in 2023, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Emory University.

Michael Yellow Bird, PhD, is Dean and Professor of the Faculty of Social Work, University of Manitoba, and a member of the MHA Nation (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) in North Dakota, USA. Michael Yellow Bird is a certified, internationally trained mindfulness meditation teacher, professional, and scholar and has been practicing mindfulness meditation since 1975. He is a Member of the Mindfulness Council of Canada Board of Directors, a Member of the Global Compassion Coalition Board of Directors, a Member of the Brown University Mindfulness Center External Advisory Board, and a Member of the Council of Elders for Indigenous Mindfulness Practices. He is a mindfulness consultant and trainer to many organizations, programs, and communities, and serves as a Decolonial Contemplative Mentor and Scholar. 

He is the author of numerous scholarly articles and the co-editor of four books: For Indigenous Eyes Only: The Decolonization Handbook; For Indigenous Minds Only: A Decolonization Handbook;​ Indigenous Social Work around the World: Towards Culturally Relevant Education and Practice; and Decolonizing Social Work. He is the co-author of two books: A Sahnish (Arikara) Ethnobotany (2020) and Decolonizing Holistic Pathways Towards Integrative Healing in Social Work (2021). He is currently co-authoring two books, Arikara Traditional Agriculture and Decolonizing the Social Work Curriculum, and is working on three books, The Memoirs of a Mindful Rez Kid, Rez Dog Meditations: Contemplative Practices for Healing People and the Lands, and A Rez Dog Manifesto: Rediscovering the Sacred Connections in the Time of Climate Change.

The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa have been the foundation of the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu’s life as a motivational speaker and activist for human rights. Those experiences taught her that our whole human family loses when we accept situations of oppression, and how the teaching and preaching of hate and division injure us all. The human rights activist’s professional experience ranges from being an economist and development consultant in West Africa to being a program coordinator for programs on Race and Gender and Gender-based Violence in Education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition, the Rev. Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford, the University of Connecticut and Brevard College in North Carolina. She served as Program Coordinator for the historic Race Relations Institute at Fisk University in Nashville, Tenn., and was a part of the Institute’s delegation to the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa.

Growing up the “daughter of Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu” has offered Naomi many opportunities and challenges in her life. Perhaps one of the greatest struggles was the call to ministry. She knew early in life that the one thing she would never be was a priest. She always said, “I have my father’s nose, I do not want his job.” It refused to be silenced, even as she carried her passion for justice into other fields. The call to preach and serve as an ordained clergyperson continued to tug at her. Finally, in her 50s, she responded and went to seminary. She is an Episcopal priest who most recently served as Associate Rector at All Saints, Beverly Hills.She started her public speaking as a college student at Berea College in Kentucky in the 1970s when she was invited to speak at churches, community groups and colleges and universities about her experiences growing up in apartheid South Africa. Since that time, she has become a much sought-after speaker to groups as varied as business associations, professional conferences, elected officials and church and civic organizations.

Rev. Tutu has established Nozizwe Consulting. Its mission is to bring different groups together to learn from and celebrate their differences and acknowledge their shared humanity. As part of this work, she has led Truth and Reconciliation Workshops for groups dealing with different types of conflict. She is the recipient of four honorary doctorates from universities and colleges in the U.S. and Nigeria. She has served as a curate at Christ Church Cathedral as a Canon Missioner for Racial and Economic Equity, and as a Canon Missioner for Kairos West Community Center for the Cathedral of All Souls in Asheville, N.C.