Billings, David: - "David Billings, a white man who has spent half a century working for racial justice, was born in McComb, Mississippi - the site of some of the fiercest struggles of the Civil Rights Movement - and later grew up in Helena, Arkansas. His family rubbed shoulders with the KKK yet never succumbed to the hatred that surrounded them. Since 1983 he has been a trainer and organizer with the People's Institute for Survival and Beyond, a New Orleans-based group led by people of color and the premier anti-racism training group in the country. Rev. Billings is an ordained United Methodist minister. He also is an historian with a special interest in the history of race and racism. Billings' organizing work has been cited for many awards including the Westchester County chapter of the National Association of Social Workers Public Citizen of the Year, the New Orleans Pax Christi Bread and Roses award; the Loyola University of New Orleans Homeless and Hunger Award; the 2010 Martin Luther King Social Justice Award from the New Orleans Jazz Foundation; and the National Alliance against Racist Oppression's Angela Davis Award for community service. He was the Whitney Young 2006 lecturer at the Westchester County NASW symposium. David Billings has a B.A. from the University of Mississippi, a Masters of Divinity degree from New York Theological Seminary, and a Doctor of Ministry (ABD) from the University of Creation Spirituality (now Wisdom University). He is married to Margery Freeman and has three children, Nathan and Noah Shroyer, and Stella Billings, and six grandchildren, Jonathan, Abigail, Isaiah, Sofia, Twain, and Whipple Ann. David and Margery currently live in McComb, Mississippi. Since 1983 Billings has trained tens of thousands of people, of all races. Often when doing a workshop, people would ask him about his book. Given the scope of his knowledge and his skill as a master storyteller people just assumed he had written one, but he was always too busy. Now, semi-retired, he has. Deep Denial is the book so many have been waiting for."