Phillip Agnew and Jennifer Carroll don’t have much in common
when it comes to political views. But today, they’ll share the stage at an
event that’s all about airing different opinions.
Agnew, executive director of the Dream Defenders and Carroll,
former lieutenant governor of Florida, will be come to the Al Lawson Jr.
Multipurpose Center to take part in the State of the Student Summit. The four-hour
panel discussion, moderated by news analyst Roland Martin, will focus on “Race,
Religion and The Reality of Tomorrow.”
Neither Agnew nor Carroll is a stranger to The Hill. Agnew
served as FAMU student body president during the 2006-2007 school year. FAMU
honored Carroll’s history-making electoral victory with a campus gala in 2011
and then welcomed her back in 2012 when she delivered the keynote address for
the FAMU Black History Convocation.
Sparks flew at the later event when Ciara Taylor, now a member of the Dream
Defenders, interrupted Carroll’s address with a one-woman protest.
Agnew remains at odds with Carroll’s former boss, Gov. Rick
Scott. The Dream Defenders initiated a 31-day sit-in in Scott’s office to
protest his support of the Stand Your Ground law that helped lead to the
acquittal a George Zimmerman, the man who killed unarmed teenager Trayvon
Martin. Last month, the Dream Defenders marched to the Florida Governor’s
Mansion to serve Scott with an eviction notice. They plan to register 65,000
new voters, which represents the margin of victory that Scott carried in 2010.
Scott is running for reelection in 2014.
Agnew and Carroll will be joined by attorney Benjamin Crump,
who represents the Martin family; Wil Haygood, journalist and author of “The
Butler;” Rev. Nolan Williams, Jr., musical curator of the John F. Kennedy
Center in Washington, D.C.; Dorothy Inman-Johnson, author of “Poverty, Politics
and Race…The View from Down Here;” and Keneshia Grant, former FAMU student body vice-president and Syracuse University doctoral candidate.