Listening Backwards: What Tradition Has to Teach Us about Our Future

As a national speaker, advocate and emcee, Julian “J.Kwest” DeShazier (Dee-Shah-Zee-Ay) has appeared on ABC, FOX, NPR and Dr. Maya Angelou’s “Oprah & Friends” radio program. J.Kwest (jay-quest) is also an Emmy Award-winning musician, featured in the video “Strange Fruit,” a commemoration of the Billie Holiday song and a meditation on racial violence. The Chicago native and graduate of Morehouse College and the University of Chicago is also pastor of University Church – a Sanctuary congregation for immigrants that also worked with Chicago’s Southside community to raise a Level 1 Trauma Center. Recognized by Crain’s Chicago Business as one of “40 Under 40” leaders in Chicago, and by the Center for American Progress as one of “10 Faith Leaders to Watch” in 2018, he serves as Director of Experiential Education at McCormick Theological Seminary; as a Leadership Greater Chicago fellow; and as a regular contributor to the Christian Century and Sojourners, where he is also a board member.