Mark Franken is executive director of migration and refugee services for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The General Commission on Religion and Race is one of six commissions of the United Methodist Church.

Mbaye Lo teaches Arabic at Duke University, Durham, N.C., and studies Islam in America. He is the author of Muslims in America: Race, Politics and Community Building (Amana, 2004).

Rabbi Marc Schneier is founder and president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and a leading figure in building up relationships between the Jewish community and African-Americans, Latinos, Christians and Muslims. He wrote Shared Dreams: Martin Luther King Jr. & the Jewish Community.

Patricia Raybon, a professor emeritus in journalism at the University of Colorado at Boulder, wrote My First White Friend: Confessions on Race, Love and Forgiveness (Penguin, 1997) and I Told the Mountain to Move (Tyndale House, 2005). She writes often about religion, family and race

Brenda Salter McNeil is president of Salter McNeil & Associates, based in Oak Park, Ill., and a nationally known consultant on racial healing and diversity within Christian organizations. She co-authored The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change (InterVarsity Press, 2004).

The international Victim Offender Mediation Association in St. Paul, Minn., promotes restorative justice. The 250-member association has members from all states.

Howard Zehr is one of the founders of the restorative justice movement. He teaches at Eastern Mennonite University, where he co-directs the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. He speaks and consults extensively on the subject. Among his many publications on the subject is the best-selling The Little Book of Restorative Justice.

Ted Wachtel is founder and president of the International Institute for Restorative Practices in Bethlehem, Pa., which offers graduate degrees and training in applying restorative principles in schools, criminal justice, child welfare and workplaces. Read “In Pursuit of Paradigm: A Theory of Restorative Justice,” a paper delivered by Wachtel and researcher Paul McCold at an international criminology conference in […]