Actor Sean Penn to keynote ADC Anaheim Convention Oct. 13
ADC is delighted to announce that two-time Academy Award winner Sean Penn will be delivering the Convention Keynote Address at the Saturday Night Gala Dinner at the upcoming Annual National Convention. As a social activist Mr. Penn has dedicated his time, and used his voice, to stand with marginalized and oppressed peoples across the world.
The Gala is scheduled for the evening of Saturday October 13, at the Sheraton Park Hotel at the Anaheim Resort in Anaheim, California. Click here to register for the Convention!
Two-time Academy Award® winner Sean Penn has become an American film icon in a career spanning over four decades. He has amassed a filmography of over 100 films as an actor, director, writer and/or producer. He is a five-time Academy Award® nominee for Best Actor for his unforgettable performances in Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown, and I Am Sam, ultimately winning two Oscars for his work in Mystic River and Milk. As a filmmaker, his directorial achievements include The Pledge, The Crossing Guard, his debut The Indian Runner, and the Academy Award-nominated Into the Wild, an adaptation of the best-selling non-fiction book, for which he received Directors Guild of America and Writers Guild of America nominations. For television, he currently stars in the acclaimed Hulu original series The First from creator Beau Willimon.
As a journalist, Sean Penn’s work has appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, Time, Rolling Stone, and The Huffington Post. Penn is a vocal advocate for human and civil rights, and in 2002 penned a prescient open letter, which he published in The Washington Post and The New York Times, to President George W. Bush against the planned invasion of Iraq. In subsequent years, Penn wrote a two-part feature in The San Francisco Chronicle after visiting war-torn Iraq, as well as a five-part feature reporting from Iran during the 2005 election that led to the Ahmadinejad regime. He landed landmark interviews with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuba’s President Raul Castro, and Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera.
Amid his remarkable career, Penn has devoted much of his time to humanitarian and philanthropic work, including in New Orleans in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina; and more recently in earthquake-ravaged Haiti. In 2010, Sean notably established and today continues to lead the J/P Haitian Relief Organization, dedicated to rebuilding infrastructure and quality of life for the Haitian people in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in 2010. In 2013, he played a vital role in getting wrongfully imprisoned American entrepreneur Jacob Ostreicher released from a Bolivian prison; and for his efforts was honored by the Aleph Institute in 2015. Penn has received numerous honors including being named Ambassador at Large for Haiti in 2012 and presented with the 2012 Peace Summit Award at the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. At the COP21 Climate Conference in December 2015, Penn partnered with a global coalition including Ségolène Royal, French Ministry for Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy, to launch “Haiti Takes Root,” an initiative which is committed to reforest Haiti over the next 10 years.
During the Gala ADC will also honor community members and activists who have stood for justice and equality. For additional information about the Convention please click here.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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